Albums that I think that you should hear

[kalfitegrdan]

Originally Posted by hellawaits77ny

That's one bold ass motherfuckin statement, MF. Will have to check this one out. One thing real quick, though. I'm a fan of SFU's 13 (released in '05). Even though I do like it, Barnes' voice was shit at this point, so I can't imagine it will sound better vocal-wise than '13'. Is he somehow able to overcome?

Just wondering. Won't be able to check till later, can't do YT at work.

There's a few parts that his voice sounds shitty on, but overall it sounds more like old school Barnes. The song "A Funeral for the Masses" sounds closer to the new Barnes and is probably my least favorite on the album. Bold statement indeed considering CC is one of my favorite bands.

[kalfitegrdan]

Artist: Viraemia
Album: Viraemia
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Release Date: 2009

Before I go into this album, I feel that I must tell you how I came upon this band. I was walking into my college like a year and a half ago and some guy pointed at my Lamb of God shirt and said, "You like that kind of music? Check out my cousin's band, Viraemia." I decided to do so, expecting some shitty Hemlock-influenced groove metal. That was not the case. What I got was a blistering tech death band of epic proportions! As a reviewer on MA put, "5 Songs, 19 Minutes, And 20,000 Notes." Now this would probably fall into the "wank" category for some, but I absolutely love this EP and think that every member of this band is extremely talented. Let's just start with the bassist, Scott Plummer...he plays a MOTHERFUCKING ten string bass that he made himself! Which he uses to its full potential in the music. The vocals are something that gets lost in a lot of tech death with a lot of one tone vocalists, but the vocalist changes it up quite a bit with using death growls, some pretty good high vocals on occasion and something that resembles a squeal, but isn't quite a full one. Simply put, this band just scrambles your brain with techy brutality. The standout tracks are all of them really on this short five song CD.

Cancrum Oris

The Prodromal Phase

Bassist and his ten string bass

[kalfitegrdan]

Artist: Gorerotted
Album: Mutilated in Minutes
Genre: Goregrind / Brutal Death Metal
Release Date: 2001

If anybody has heard of the British death metal band The Rotted, this is who they were before they changed their name. This is just fast, gory, humorous grind with heavy death metal influences. This album contains possibly one of the funniest song titles I've ever heard, "Severed, Sawn, Sold as Porn," which is rivaled by the song on their next album called "Zombie Graveyard Rape Bonanza." This album gets fast as hell, but doesn't lose its coherence like some grind albums tend to do and has a distince melody to many of the riffs. The vocals can take a bit to get used to, at least that's the case with his high vocals for me, but now I definitely love 'em. A lot of the song titles rhyme ("Bed 'em Behead 'em" and "Put Your Bits in a Concrete Mix" to name a couple) which gives the gore an almost nursery rhyme feel a la Macabre. I'm tired as hell, so I'm just gonna wrap this up by saying that this is a great album that should please grind and death metal fans alike. The standout tracks are "Hacksore," "Stab Me Till I Cum," "Mutilated in Minutes, Severed in Seconds," "Gagged, Shagged, Bodybagged" and "Severed, Sawn and Sold as Porn."

Hacksore

Gagged, Shagged, Bodybagged

[kalfitegrdan]

Artist: Lord Belial
Album: Enter the Moonlight Gate
Genre: Black Metal
Release Date: 1997

Ah, some kick ass Swedish black metal that some crackhead in the train station in Chicago told me to listen to. This black metal ablum is a great listen, albeit pretty standard with tremolo picking and blast beats aplenty. The production isn't very good, but that's to be expected on most '90s black metal albums and I personally like the atmosphere that it gives the music. Some songs, like the title track, feature a woman doing melodic vocals that kind of back up the lead vocalist's tormented howls. The one thing that sets this apart from your run of the mill black metal is that the guitar work seems more inspired and interesting on a lot of the songs than your average black metal riff. Anyway, I would rank this among my top 10 albums of '90s black metal and if you like the genre, you should check it out. The standout tracks are "Unholy Spell of Lilith," "Path With Endless Horizons" and "Lamia."


Unholy Spell of Lilith

Path of Endless Horizons

[kalfitegrdan]

Artist: A Loathing Requiem
Albums: Psalms of Misanthropy
Genre: Technical Death Metal
Release Date: 2010

This is a great one man band consisting of the former guitarist from the band Enfold Darkness, Malcolm Pugh. You can tell that this guy is heavily inspired by the likes of Necrophagist. Most songs are relentlessly fast, with pauses that I can only imagine are meant for a pause to rest his fingers and for the listener to take a break from their ferverous headbanging. Even the vocals are pretty good, which is something that isn't always the case with tech death and he uses layering on some songs that gives the vocals a more powerful effect. A con of the album is that after a little over 20 minutes of listening to it, all the songs just kind of start to blend together. The standout tracks are "Rapturous Euphoria," "False Gods Render Death," "And Darkness Was Cast" and "Architect or Arsonist."

The quality of the Youtube videos aren't very good.

And Darkness Was Cast

Architect or Arsonist

[kalfitegrdan]

Artist: Gallows
Album: Orchestra of Wolves
Genre: Hardcore
Release Date: 2006

I first heard of this band on some compilation from Metal Hammer magazine back around the time of this album's release. This is a hardcore realse, but it doesn't feel like it. I'm no expert on hardcore, but this just doesn't sound like any hardcore that I've ever heard. If I were to describe this album in one word, that word would be: Chaotic. The guitars are just all over the place and create a feel of chaos throughout the album. A perfect example of this is the opening riff of "In the Belly of a Shark." I feel like this band was heavily influenced by Converge and bands of that sort on this album, which gives it an almost mathcore type of feel, but there's an underlaying Rockabilly vibe to some of the riffs, imo. It's a shame that this style didn't carry over to their next release, Grey Britain, or this would easily be one of my favorite bands. The vocals are a traditional type of hardcore yell/scream with a thick British accent, which I mention the accent because I think it really adds to the music. Some of you may be familiar with the track "In the Belly of a Shark" as it was in the third installment of the Guitar Hero franchise. The standout tracks are "Kill the Rhythm," "Come Friendly Bombs," "Abandon Ship," "In the Belly of a Shark," "Orchestra of Wolves" and "Staring at the Rude Bois (The Ruts cover)"

Abandon Ship

In the Belly of a Shark

Orchestra of Wolves

Staring at the Rude Bois (The Ruts cover) (This is actually a bonus track on the re-issue and it's a bit different, stylistically, but it's a killer track all the same.)

[kalfitegrdan]

Streets resurrected his thread after months of inactivity, so fuck it, I'm gonna do the same.







Artist: Sanctuary
Album: Refuge Denied
Genre: Power / Traditional Metal
Release Date: 1988


I'm sure a lot of people here know this album, but I feel that it is underrated. It's kind of hard for me to classify this album. It's probably more power metal than anything, but it contains more than a few elements of trad. metal, thrash and prog (which they would expand more upon in their second album). This is probably my favorite clean vocal performance on any album. Warrel Dane's high vocals are just over the top ridiculous on tracks like "Battle Angels" and "Termination Force" and pretty much every other song and I absolutely love it! I feel that Dane toned down his vocals a little bit on the next album to let the progginess of the instruments shine and that's why I think I'll never be able to get into that one as much. I'm glad I got a chance to see them live (even if they didn't play my favorite song ) because it gave me a chance to rediscover this gem of an album.


Battle Angels

Termination Force

Ascension to Destiny

[Mental Pain]

Originally Posted by kalfitegrdan

Artist: Benighted
Album: Icon
Genre: Deathgrind / Tech Death
Release Date: 2007


I've already seen this band mentioned in some old thread that I was checking out, but dammit, that's just not enough. This band is technical, grindy amazingness and this album is by far their best. Songs like "Grind Wit" are just all over the place with in your face brutality to a melodic breakdown to a French rap verse (I know, right?). The vocalist encorporates a bunch of different vocal types in here using death growls, grindcore screeches and a few pig squeals here and there. The con of this album is that most of the good tracks are at the beginning and it begins to lose momentum a bit towards the end, with the exception of track 10, "Invoxhate." Also, there's an undeniable hardcore influence, which may lose some, but I personally like it. The whole band are really talented musicians and I think that you should check them out if you haven't. The standout tracks to me are "Grind Wit", "Slut" and "Invoxhate."

Grind Wit

Slut

It's quite diverse, I mean it has everything in it. A giant mix of everything from a tad of French rap, to breakdowns you'd hear expect in metalcore, all the way back to ear-assaulting brutal riffs. It's most certainly a very unique album.

[MetalIsArt]

Originally Posted by Mental Pain

It's quite diverse, I mean it has everything in it. A giant mix of everything from a tad of French rap, to breakdowns you'd hear expect in metalcore, all the way back to ear-assaulting brutal riffs. It's most certainly a very unique album.

Looks interesting. Any bands to compare them to?

[kalfitegrdan]

Originally Posted by MetalIsArt

Looks interesting. Any bands to compare them to?

Hmm...maybe Aborted meets avant-garde metal.