Metal - Holy Wars, Strongholds & The Thousand Lakes by LedZep

From Mercury 06/19/2023 23:36

Only just seeinng your comment, LedZep. Totally understand regarding Grindcore. It's certainly a genre that doesn't have its standout songs lol. The great albums and bands are distinguished broadly by tone and attitude and, idk, like an intangible uniqueness in the combination of instruments/riffs/recording styles. I remember a quote about Minutemen's music from Mike Watt where he said "We don't write songs, we write rivers". That also applies to a lot of grind - when I fall for a Grindcore albums, even after 10-20 listens, I am not paying attention to or recognizing individual songs, but rivers and torrents of sound.

And got it on Doom. I suppose I classified that genre as being "LedZep-core" due primarily to your love of Candlemass and Worm.

Oh and I love the additions you've made here. Beautiful chart of course.

From LedZep 06/04/2023 23:59

Yeah I've been hooked on The Mantle for the past 7-8 years, but their other stuff has significantly grown on me over time. Think it's fair to say they're one of my fave bands now. AND they've announced a comeback show!

I actually like grind much more than this chart shows, it's just that grind albums serve a very specific purpose - a short shot of energy, letting the steam off and having fun. Which means I often just play whatever grind band I can think of first, rather than making a special connection with particular songs or bands. That's not always the case ofc, and maybe that approach will completely disappear in the future so I'll have more grindcore representation here. Inalienable Dreamless is indeed insane!

It's funny that you've mentioned doom, I've been thinking a lot about that genre recently. Obviously I love the more extreme doom, various combinations of doom and death and black metal, as well as some of the classic doom stuff. But I've often felt somewhat underwhelmed by the 80s doom and stoner, which are staples of this subgenre. I like but don't love your Pagan Altars, Witchfinder Generals, Saint Vituses, Kyusses, Uncle Deadbeats etc. Besides that, I've never thought of Agalloch, death doom or even funeral doom as the "real" doom, ie. traditional doom, even though they definitely fall under the same umbrella genre tag. So am I really a doom fan and is this one of my favourite metal subgenres? Idk.

From Mercury 05/30/2023 03:02

Bloody hell, I love this! 23 albums in common as of now and 26 artists. Some inclusions here surprised and delighted me. I have been circling and sort of nibbling at the fringes of Intestine Baalism, for example, and I love what I have heard here and there and they are on my To Do. Loved seeing them included.

Our top 20-30 are pretty radically different and I love seeing all these epic doom and sort of mammoth black metal albums that I have been interested in exploring but never have. This will push me in that direction.

And you included a Grindcore album which makes me happy. Inalienable F=Dreamless is something else!!!

I look forward to exploring some of these and checking out how this subtly changes in future and when we do play that game and exchange our favorites, I hope to win you a few more grincore albums into your 100! lol. You, in turn will make some doom albums appear.

Edit: looking again and I like the variety. It isn’t dominated by Doom metal really. Pretty nice mix. Agalloch, however, is clearly the BAND OF THE CENTURY so far in your eyes.