I Listened to a Reasonable Number of Albums!
And I still am putting this up very late! Oh well!
I actually have a good reason for that — I’ve got this nice re-listening groove, but for one reason or another, I didn’t actually have much music listening time. I had plenty of podcast listening time. They’re two very different times.
I think I’ve updated my very silly system for this very silly project I’ve given myself. Maybe I’ll get through the albums more times for the next set.
…
Anyway.
Behold! The List!
See? Reasonable!
There wasn’t anything from April that I wanted to boo off the stage for being bad or that bored me so hard I wondered why I wasn’t just listening to the sound of someone popping bubble wrap. Some stuff I really liked, but — much like my life accomplishments — the majority of releases were mediocre. Enough highs that they don’t get deleted from my music library. Yet.
S-Tier
Cursed Be Thy Kingdom — Betwitcher
I never really gave black n’ roll too much thought as a genre. It seemed like something I’d like in theory. I do, after all, enjoy death n’ roll acts like Entombed as well as really loved Chapel of Disease’s last record. But nothing in the black metal genre really did it for me. I’ve always been picky with my black metal.
Anyway, this album is black n’ roll and it fucking rules. God, it rules so much. Every time one of the songs off this record shows up on my playlist shuffle it immediately makes me so happy.
A-Tier
The Visions of Trismegistos — Nekromantheon
Those RIFFS.
Shibboleth — Ophiuchi
It’s strangely mixed and echoey and there’s something odd rhythmically, but I dig it.
Violence Unimagined — Cannibal Corpse
It’s Cannibal Corpse. They give you exactly the same thing every time. And every time it’s still somehow good. In fact, this version of their gore-obsessed riff-fest is really, really good.
Burn In Many Mirrors — Wode
Can I get a “hell yes” in the chat 2nite?
Celestial Putridity — Innoculation
God, this was some sublime filthy death metal.
B-Tier
Ultrapop — The Armed
I really like the Armed’s eclectic and busy punk/metal/electronica style, but the songs were hit-or-miss in terms of grabbing me on this record.
Fortitude — GOJIRA
GOJIRA’s melodic side is usually just as compelling as their heavy side, especially when juxtaposed together. This time around, the soft stuff was really hit or miss.
Ice Fleet — Kauan
I’ll admit I probably won’t spin this much, and neither will I listen to most of the tracks individually and get much out of them, but listened to as a whole, this album is the epitome of ~v i b e s~
Slay in Hell — Steel Bearing Hand
it start thrashy, it turn sludgy :3
Paint the Sky with Blood — Bodom After Midnight
Thank you, Alexi, for sharing this from your little plot in shredder heaven. You are missed.
Epilogue — To the Grave
Right, this is technically a deluxe version of To the Grave’s debut album, Global Warning. But I heard it for the first time, and there’s a whopping EIGHT extra tracks tagged on to the back end, so… it counts!
It also helps that I found the back half to be the best half. Their style is a little too slam death and deathcore for my liking sometimes, but when they hit, they hit.
Geister — Paysage d’Hiver
Much like the Kauan album above, this one is mostly vibes for me. I’m still learning how to appreciate this sort of black metal.
C-Tier
Hell Unleashed — Evile
I have a bit of a personal history with Evile’s music. When I was first getting into heavier forms of metal, my entry genre into the harder shit was thrash metal. Thrash was full of the awesome riffs I was falling in love with, but it wasn’t too extreme, especially vocal-wise. It took me a while to learn how to appreciate death growls and other more abrasive forms of “singing”.
As it happened, Evile were one of the big bands in the thrash metal revival back in the late aughts, early 10s, so it was only natural I’d come across them. I loved them immediately. Loved the riffs, loved the big songs.
Hell Unleashed is the first album they’ve put out since 2013’s Skull, an album which I still haven’t listened to despite really loving the rest of their back catalog. And… things have changed. I’ve changed and so has Evile.
The thing that jumped out at me immediately was that the vocals sounded totally different. I don’t pay attention to music press, so I had to do a quick Google and found my suspicions were confirmed — different vocalist. It’s a shame — I liked the original vocal style a lot. I liked the shout-singing. Just a bit of melody, just a bit of grit.
That’s fine. I can deal with it. Evile’s changed. People change. Bands change. There’s much more to metal than vocals. Anyone who listens for just the vocals is, I think, a bit of a weirdo.
The riffs are fine. The songs are fine. It’s just fine. They don’t sound like the Evile I knew. And that’s fine.
The thing that keeps bugging me is… am I having the same reaction that old-time Exodus fans did when they replaced Zetro with Rob Dukes? I hope not. I made fun of that reaction. I liked the Atrocity Exhibition albums a lot. So Dukes’ voice wasn’t as distinct as Zetro’s or Baloff’s, but the harsher edge worked well for the darker tone those albums took… and he was still quite versatile! Am I only saying all this because the most recent Exodus albums that were out when I was in high school were the Dukes ones?
I don’t think I’m having the same reaction as those Exodus fans. Because say what you will about the Dukes era, at least those songs had killer memorable riffs. Hell Unleashed? Not so much.
That was a long way of saying: the album’s fine.
Beautiful Distraction — Haunt
I still don’t know if I find Haunt’s vocals to be annoying or not. They are kind of annoying. They kind of sound off-pitch. But they kind of make it work? The title track on this album gets stuck in my head very easily.
Anyway, their other projects are more interesting. This just feels like business as usual.
LV-426 — Hideous Divinity
It’s a neat little EP. Nothing to write home about.
Wild North West — Vreid
I’ve tried to get into Vreid before and there’s something about them that doesn’t quite do it for me. They do black n’ roll, much like the album I praised so much in the S-Tier, but… I dunno, they just don’t do it as well as Bewitcher.
A Diabolic Thirst — Spectral Wound
It’s fine.
V — Saille
There are a couple moments of brilliant originality that shine through an otherwise boilerplate death metal release.
I Learned My Lesson!
And he never listened to thirty releases in a month ever again. What a character arc.