Quote:
Originally Posted by DarkAngel
Hey ET was right, the Diabolical Masquerade CD is cool. Lots of interesting musical ideas here that flow together much better than the many tracks would have you believe, sound is also very good, solid dark metal album.
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Oh good, I'm so glad the money was well spent.
It is an idosycratic CD and not everyone appreciates it. I made a
post about DM at another metal forum and some people really don't
like it.I'm sure everyone is well aware long ago about the
Ultimate metal forum .
It's a nice change of pace for me. Rougher for sure, but I like the more
liberal use of language. Head-Fi is like a rowdy library (and I like
libraries) and Ultimate metal like a noisy, more colorful bar(33,083
members). And I do like having forums devoted to individual bands,
My Dying Bride, Opeth, Katatonia, Dan Swano, etc.
Speaking of idosycratic, Arcturus''The Sham Mirrors' is a spacey,
psychedelic listen that's lots of fun but not metal really. What's
with the drummer Hellhammer? How many bands is this guy with?!!!
Wow.
I'm still waiting for
'Chimera' to arrive. I did just receive
Arch
Enemy's 'Wages of Sin' and liked 'Ravenous' & 'Savage Messiah' right
away but haven't heard side 2 yet. I prefer
Aggaloch's 'Pale
Folklore' to 'The Mantle'. 'Pale Folklore' has a charming
amateurness to. That's not an insult, it's a compliment. Mantle is a
little overpolished and stretched out for me. But both are really
recorded well.
As for my vinyl experiment I've found it depends on the recording.
The Arch Enemy, Katatonia, Dimmu and My Dying Bride releases are
pretty close between CD and vinyl. But there are exceptions where
real care has been put into the pressing. I picked up Earmark's
180
gram Black Sabbath Vol.4. I chose Vol.4 as one I've not heard as
much as the earlier ones. I should have picked the 1st LP so I could
hear "What is this that stands before me" because these Earmark
pressings have major soundstaging audiophile qualities. They sound
fantastic.And the album jacket is great, it's texture is like glossy
photopaper and the whole thing comes in a heavy plastic re-sealable
cover. Pretty damned cool for $18 USD. I think I'm going to sell
the Castle CD box set and get the rest. But I noticed Rhino records
has released a 180 gram 'Paranoid' as well so I'll wait and see
what's going on there.
Whenever browsing TheEnd I'll see the book 'Top 500 Heavy Metal
Albums' (Martin Popoff) and was
NOT interested for one moment.
I saw it when looking around a bookstore near me and flipped through it
and it is OK. This is essentially a bathroom book you'd spend 10
minutes with now and again. It's a great way for me to kill 15
minutes on the subway. I open it at any page. A good value for $15
IMHO.
The 500 were arrived at through an international poll and so it's
front heavy with Metallica,Slayer,AC/DC,Iron Maiden,etc but it gets
more interesting further on.
186-Dokken-Tooth and Nail
187-Gamma Ray-Land of the Free
188-Death-Symbolic
189-Cooper,Alice-Love it to Death
190-Mayhem-De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
191-Corrosion of Conformity-Deliverance
192-Queensryche-The Warning
193-Rush-A Farewell to Kings
194-Blue Oyster Cult-Agents of Fortune
195-White Zombie-La Sexorcisto
evil Music Vol.1
196-Therion-Theli
197-Thin Lizzy-Thunder and Lightning
198-Motorhead-No Remorse
A real mixed bag of bands for sure!
Each description is about a paragraph but what I liked was that
95% were followed by a paragraph length quote from an
interview from a band member about that particular album.
Example:
#351 Turn Loose The Swans-My Dying Bride
"I'm somewhat suprised that marks didn't coagulate around a newer,
more accomplished MDB collection, but there you go, fans eyeing
album No.2, the exciting moment when the band's black wings spread
elegantly and perceptively for the first time. Turn Loose The Swans
is a heavy, creaking experiment in mental terrorism, the band
grinding metal down to barely conscious levels, Aaron croaking over
the deafening hum, his intense gothic romanticism-(f)or-death
transferred, broken man to broken fan, firmly,
graphically,invitingly. The band lulls you into thinking not much
happens, so when it (sparingly and infinitely later) does, the
effect is like the 16 hooves of the apocalypse overrunning your
foxhole position."
Aaron on Turn Loose The Swans:
"This is a sort of choppy, changey kind of record. You can see the
natural setup from the previous album, but with much better
production. We had calmed down a bit soundwise too. We also released
two EPS by this time as well, and we were much more mature. Turn
Loose The Swans is a lot of fan's favorite album, I think. It's nice
when we see and hear bands doing similar things to My Dying Bride.
And some bands, you can hear riffs that are ours and they've tweaked
them ever so slightly to give them a sort of copyright edge
[laughs], and it's nice. We are in no way offended by people taking
big, heavy chunky influences off us. That's great. We don't want to
be ripped off, obviously, but it's nice when you see elements from
MDB in other bands. And it's wonderful when you read interviews from
bands and they say, 'Oh God, yeah, My Dying Bride influenced us.'
And I'm sure people in Celtic Frost and Candlemass like to read
that. They are two of my favorite bands of all time. It's nice to be
complimented."
I like when musical insight is part of the interview:
Hellhammer on De Mysteriis:
"With the production, some of it has to do with...well, back then,
the studio wasn't really a studio. They built it up more later, but
back then my drums were actually recorded in the big hall, with lots
of ambient mix in there; I insisted on having my drums recorded
there instead of this little recording room. It was a lot of hassle
for the producer, because he had to drag cables through the elevator
tracks, but I'm very glad that I did it like that. Grieghallen was
the right place for us and for the album. I think that record was
ahead of its time, as there weren't too many people who liked it.
But in a way, it really set a standard for this Norwegian
contemporary black metal wave, actually. I'd say in like, 1988, the
feeling was much more dark. I would say at that point in time I was
more into the occult, satanism. Not so much today now. A band can
never run away from its history, and Mayhem has a very dark, bloody
history. But history is history, and when people want to bring up
the killing of Euronymous, Dead's suicide, Varg's imprisonment and
stuff like that, it's like...it's not so interesting to me, actually
[laughs]. I'm not too comfortable to talk about it, because it's all
been said and I'm sick of repeating myself. But De Mysteriis, the
feeling on that album is unparalleled. I've never heard such
darkness and atmosphere on any other old release."
I guess I've typed enough.
). I have an Anathema cd that someone sent me.. (SERENADES) - that's pretty decent, though not earth-shattering. I'm not sure what catagory they fit into. As I've said before, most of the stuff I know is old school death metal and grindcore. I really like a lot of the newer death/black metal.. though sometimes the orchestrations and/or synths come off sounding silly in my opinion.. it just kind of depends on how they're used. 
