10 Heavy Metal (shoulda been first as this is like the base traditional metal. Many are mixed with other subgenres or forms.)
10 Thrash Metal (and subgenres. Also some are kinda half other forms as well. Maybe a bit more familiar with the classics in this subgenre, but still woefully ignorant of things that really kick ass, apparently.)
10 Alternative Metal (a broad and unclear genre that I would like to dive into a bit)
10 Progressive Metal (most of these are connected to Death or other forms of metal)
10 Doom Metal (and connected or sub genres)
Pagan Altar by Pagan Altar (1982)
Pentagram by Pentagram (1985)
Epicus Doomicus Metallicus by Candlemass (1986)
Transcendence Into the Peripheral by diSEMBOWELMENT (1993)
The Angel and the Dark River by My Dying Bride (1995)
World Coming Down by Typo O Negative (1999)
Dopethrone by Electric Wizard (2000)*
Dopesmoker by Sleep (2003)*
Monotheist by Celtic Frost (2006)
Watching from a Distance by Warning (2006)
10 Sludge Metal (and subgenres, most of these seem to be connected with Post Metal or other genres as well.)
5 Industrial Metal
5 Power Metal
5 Metalcore/Mathcore and subgenres/connected genres I guess.
5 Stoner Metal
The Ethereal Mirror by Cathedral (1993)
Kyuss [Welcome to Sky Valley] by Kyuss (1994)*
Pink by Boris (2005)
Death Is This Communion by High On Fire (2007)
Dead Roots Stirring by Elder (2011)
That's a lot of incredible albums. There's some I haven't heard either, might just follow along. There's some picks that I feel aren't very accessible, some where it's the most well known album by the band but maybe not my favourite, but the selections are really strong. I'd suggest moving Sleep and Electric Wizard to the "stoner" bunch, these two are much more influential in that realm. You could possibly replace them with some funeral doom or death doom (or doom death, although there isn't a genre tag for that on RYM, if it even is a "real" subgenre) albums to fully explore the genre.
Thanks very much for the suggestions, LedZep! I moved those sleep and electric wiz albums to stoner, now its updated and edited on that original list post. And so now there are 7 Stoner metal entries and I did a little tiny bit o' research and added what seems to be an early pioneering album of Death Doom Metal (its a recognized subgenre on RYM for what its worth) by Paradise Lost. I also added a Funeral Death album (sounds like a fucking cool genre that I look forward to hearing for myself, based off the description though...sounds awesome.) as well.
I will search it out, but I figured I will ask, what is Sunn O))) considered? I love some of their stuff but it doesn't seem to be coming up on these lists. Are they considered a bit too Fantano/Hipster-loved to be considered great metal? _________________ -Ryan
are the next 2 albums locked in mortal combat haha.
These 2 I haven't returned to as much the last 3 weeks since first listens. Civilians I've heard 2 times previous to this revisit. And I think I also heard Year of the Cat twice before this relisten.
Year of the Cat is amazing! As a pop rock album its just a brilliant breezy near-perfectly crafted album start to finish. Now, does it strike me as an all time first ballot Ryan-Hall-Of-Fame album? No. Not yet anyway. But I respect the hell out of the craft and the beauty of the album. "Broadway Hotel" which I'm listening to again now, is just a beautiful song. And that can be said about most songs on this thing. still a 4/5 to me. In order to achieve 4.5 or certainly anything higher than 4.5 I need to feel a personal connection of some magnitude. And such a connection is so random and so unpredictable and so personal it is almost a game breaking thing. What I mean is I could listen to an album such as this, that is so clearly a pristine work of pop and not quite emotionally or "spiritually" connect with, then listen to an album with flaws and warts and an album that maybe is paced or recorded or written quite sloppily but It may just hit me in mah hawt and make me cry or something and BOOM I will love that album more than an album like Year of the Cat or Aja or whatever example of such. An example of this is Johnny Thunders' So Alone. That is a simplistic, sloppy, sad sack album that has some moments that just don't quite work on some level. BUT I adore that album, it speaks to me and has all kinda of personal connections. And I would "vote" for So Alone over other albums 10 times out of 10. Anyway, you get it, this is a thought almost everyone understands and it doesn't need to have a big run on paragraph devoted to something so obvious lol.
Now onto Civilians by Joe Henry.
In comparison this is a MUCH more basic and simple and perhaps "Cliche" singer/songwriter album. Less instrumentation, less soaring melodies from electric guitars and keyboards and so forth. Hell, I can even see how many would consider this quite vanilla or "Boring". For me, though, this is my shit! Joe Henry was one of my favorite discoveries on that first initial blast of 64 albums I heard for this game. His 2001 album "Scar" quickly has become one of my faves and I gave it a 5 (perhaps with too much haste and enthusiasm for a new discovery - definitely a 4.5 though). This album doesn't have the same deeply bluesy and soulful soundscapes nor the Ornette Coleman solos and prestige that Scar has.
What it does have is some truly great songs. "Time is A Lion" is an all timer for me. Just amazing. Almost as incredible and subtly atmospheric is "Scare Me To Death", or "You Can't Fail Me Now" or "Civil War". or "Our Song" or "Love Is Enough" or or or or... its a truly great collection of songs methinks.
These are long (often times), slow building, purposeful songs. With amazing lyrics that are never obvious and direct in their brilliance. The pianos and bass and guitars and the very clear and up-in-the-mix vocals all just sound precisely and perfectly placed. Its a great album. A very mature and secure album. Right up there with Scar as another modern near-classic or would-be-classic. Maybe not as memorable as Scar, but perhaps the more subtle aspect of this work makes it a deeper cut and greater grower. This is a 4-4.5 album and just a bit more my tempo than that excellent Al Stewart album. So....
Joe Henry has won and will move onto the Sweet 16!!!! _________________ -Ryan
NOTE: This set of matches may take awhile just like the last as I will be indeed delving into some HEAVY METAL MADNESSSSS!!!!!!!! as gone over in a post a couple back, there are a solid 100-110 classic metal albums that I will be trying to slowly nibble through and I'll post my brief or not-so-brief thoughts on these classics here on my diary.
Also I'll be doing other listening games and listening to some hip hop albums and building out my 2020 and 2021 charts and so forth etc etc - lots of new exciting stuff. _________________ -Ryan
Thanks very much for the suggestions, LedZep! I moved those sleep and electric wiz albums to stoner, now its updated and edited on that original list post. And so now there are 7 Stoner metal entries and I did a little tiny bit o' research and added what seems to be an early pioneering album of Death Doom Metal (its a recognized subgenre on RYM for what its worth) by Paradise Lost. I also added a Funeral Death album (sounds like a fucking cool genre that I look forward to hearing for myself, based off the description though...sounds awesome.) as well.
I will search it out, but I figured I will ask, what is Sunn O))) considered? I love some of their stuff but it doesn't seem to be coming up on these lists. Are they considered a bit too Fantano/Hipster-loved to be considered great metal?
Interesting choice for Paradise Lost album, but it really was extremely influential in the gothic metal realm. And it's one of their best, just not the most popular. Also I was talking about doom death not being recognised, while death doom (notice the order of words?) is a well established genre. It sounds absurd that changing the order of words makes for a new genre, but metalheads are for some reason very specific with classification. Doom death was pioneered by Draconian (as far as I know), but it's actually just death doom with more emphasis on doom, while death doom bands like Autopsy, Rippikoulu etc. were death metal at their core, but played slower and more doomy riffs. It's disputed if doom death is even a genre. It's kinda ridiculous, like a lot of things in metal.
Funeral doom is a very divisive genre, but well respected in kvlt circles. I'm looking forward to you reviewing Stormcrowfleet. As for Sunn O))) and similar bands, they're also divisive. It's called drone metal, and the genre soooo often gets dismissed as boring noise. It is considered hipster metal, but who cares, it's good. Just don't go around calling them your favourite metal band 🤣
Also I've never listened to a Gillian Welch album before, but your charts and these reviews made me put Time (The Revelator) in the queue. Currently listening, it's so good! _________________ Overall chart Fake overall chart
decided to jump first into the pre 1980 and then early 80s albums on my big metal catch up list. Started with black sabbath's sabbath bloody sabbath. I wasn't feeling it and realized I really just wanted to skip ahead to my long awaited relisten to Rising cuz I remember being kinda blown away earlier a couple years back despite "not liking early metal". So this bad boy...
Kicked fucking ass! 33 minutes of some of the coolest sounding hard rock/metal ever. The whole band is so on fire. Gotta couple legends on guitar and vocals and outside of the sometimes super fucking lame lyrics, this whole album was absolutely brilliant. I think I may like it more than their debut which previously I remember thinking was the better of the two for some reason. Need to revisit it soon as well.
and it still didn't really blow me away. IDK, with sabbath outside of Vol 4 none of their albums have truly become all time favorites for me. Paranoid was huge for me as a kid of say 12 to 14. But now I don't quite worship it nor their also quite great debut. master of Reality never did much for me, and I have never delved into much latter day Dio era or later Sabbath so can't comment. Maybe now that I love me some Rainbow I need to listen to Heaven And Hell? Yes I will. First on my to do list is finally listening to Holy Diver. But I digress.
Sabbath Blood Sabbath was really cool. I'm not saying it was poor by any means. I especially liked the less doomy metal parts, the songs that were either soft like Fluff or more bluesy and rocking. I kinda hated the corny keyboard/synth driven song, so that is an exception to the non-metal songs blowing me away. Overall though the title track and Sabra Cadabra or whatever its called were excellent. 3.5/5ish 😈😈😈
Then I listened to this for the first time in a loooong time....
And it was balls to ze wall badass all the way through. Motorhead is a bit one note to put it mildly, but like the ramones that one note is consistently fantastic. I think the songs and the general drive and ferociousness of this album is better even than Ace of Spades, but its close. Ace of Spades production seemed more clean and I liked it more from what I recall and thesong ace of spades is such a masterpiece it kinda overshadows everything else. But yeah this was dope. Glad I revisited this and other classic old school metal albums before jumping into the more extreme late 80s and onwards styles. 4 wicked faces 😈😈😈😈
then I listend to this for the first time as far as I recall...
And this was also quite good. The song Am I Evil is easily the standout here and its easily one of the best metal songs ever created, I bow down to the majesty of that song. But the rest of the album was sick. Loved the long, evolving structures of some of the tracks. They were long and at times kinda complex (never very very complex from what I could hear) but never up their own asses. The vocals were alright, and the musicianship in general was good. Will return at some point if only to hear Am I Evil.
😈😈😈
And then finally I checked out the earliest album not on the heavy metal list but on one of the many subgenre lists, that was ...
Now this was a little weird. Cuz the album the debut album, the one with all the theories about how it was never made in 1982 and was actually recorded in the 90s and its just a long con, wasn't on apple music. There was a "compilation" which had all 7 songs in an order which was not listed on RYM, so I cobbled together the songs in the right sequence and pushed play. It was incredible! Way heavier than anything else heard today. Almost tooo heavy, like I was wondering if the band came back and recorded these tracks at a later date or something. I was having that thought before even reading up on the doubt surrounding the original release of the album. But anyway, I still listend to what I think was their self titled debut and It was without a doubt amamzing! Yes very very sabbath influenced. But they were heavier and nastier and I loved it. Each song was a towering masterwork of just fucking LOUD and in your face, not particularly tight doomy slow metal with cool leads and atmosphere and amazing riffs. I tend to like metal that isn't dominated by a GREAT frontman. I guess I just don't like hearing technically great over the top singers singing about satan and wizards and girls and shit. So I liked that the singer wasn't great and I couldn't understand the words and I could just focus on the heavy stuff. Easily another...
😈😈😈😈😈
This has been my journey so far. Didn't expect to listen to 9 albums today and probably won't keep up this rate, but we shall see. Soon i'll be listening to some black/death/thrash metal so that will be fun. _________________ -Ryan
Thanks very much for the suggestions, LedZep! I moved those sleep and electric wiz albums to stoner, now its updated and edited on that original list post. And so now there are 7 Stoner metal entries and I did a little tiny bit o' research and added what seems to be an early pioneering album of Death Doom Metal (its a recognized subgenre on RYM for what its worth) by Paradise Lost. I also added a Funeral Death album (sounds like a fucking cool genre that I look forward to hearing for myself, based off the description though...sounds awesome.) as well.
I will search it out, but I figured I will ask, what is Sunn O))) considered? I love some of their stuff but it doesn't seem to be coming up on these lists. Are they considered a bit too Fantano/Hipster-loved to be considered great metal?
Interesting choice for Paradise Lost album, but it really was extremely influential in the gothic metal realm. And it's one of their best, just not the most popular. Also I was talking about doom death not being recognised, while death doom (notice the order of words?) is a well established genre. It sounds absurd that changing the order of words makes for a new genre, but metalheads are for some reason very specific with classification. Doom death was pioneered by Draconian (as far as I know), but it's actually just death doom with more emphasis on doom, while death doom bands like Autopsy, Rippikoulu etc. were death metal at their core, but played slower and more doomy riffs. It's disputed if doom death is even a genre. It's kinda ridiculous, like a lot of things in metal.
Funeral doom is a very divisive genre, but well respected in kvlt circles. I'm looking forward to you reviewing Stormcrowfleet. As for Sunn O))) and similar bands, they're also divisive. It's called drone metal, and the genre soooo often gets dismissed as boring noise. It is considered hipster metal, but who cares, it's good. Just don't go around calling them your favourite metal band 🤣
Also I've never listened to a Gillian Welch album before, but your charts and these reviews made me put Time (The Revelator) in the queue. Currently listening, it's so good!
Oh okay that makes sense regarding the word reversal. Metal danom and genre atomization is quite funny. But yeah i get it now.
Also, I'm psyched you listened to some Gillian Welch. I fucking adore her music, especially that album. _________________ -Ryan
Obvs I love all the metal albums you listened to up above. They're all classics.
1. I do think that the first four Sabbath albums are on another level and than comes Sabbath Bloody Sabbath & Sabotage (which are both still really, really good.)
2. Both Rising and Long Live Rock n' Roll are way better than their debut. Long Live Rock N' Roll is pretty much on the same level as the legendary Rising.
3. YES! You need to listen to Heaven and Hell (& Mob Rules). Both are classic early 80s metal. Holy Diver is a bit more commercial than both of those but totally a five star album (maybe because of that!)
4. If you liked Diamond Head, check out Angel Witch! Just as good and mining similar terrain: proto-thrash/NWOBHM.
5. Yes! Overkill & Ace Of Spades kick ass, but don't forget about Bomber!
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
Obvs I love all the metal albums you listened to up above. They're all classics.
1. I do think that the first four Sabbath albums are on another level and than comes Sabbath Bloody Sabbath & Sabotage (which are both still really, really good.)
2. Both Rising and Long Live Rock n' Roll are way better than their debut. Long Live Rock N' Roll is pretty much on the same level as the legendary Rising.
3. YES! You need to listen to Heaven and Hell (& Mob Rules). Both are classic early 80s metal. Holy Diver is a bit more commercial than both of those but totally a five star album (maybe because of that!)
4. If you liked Diamond Head, check out Angel Witch! Just as good and mining similar terrain: proto-thrash/NWOBHM.
5. Yes! Overkill & Ace Of Spades kick ass, but don't forget about Bomber!
I'll add Long Live Rock n roll and a relisten of Bomber (been awhile and so this will be essentially a new listen. I'll also put those Dio Sabbath albums on my to listen list a little further down but not much.
Angel Witch....I shall add that as well. so many goooodies! Thanks, as always, Repo! _________________ -Ryan
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