The Setting: What do you call a supergroup that's really just a Prequel to the more famous groups? A Proto-group? 🤔 Regardless, the guys playing in Terrorizer would go onto to do GREAT things. Peter Sandoval😈 > and David Vincent >on bass> would go on to be the rhythm section for motherfucking Morbid Angel and Jesse Pintado would go on to shred, appropriately enough, with his heroes and main influence - Grindcore legends Napalm Death. BUT, does it destroy?
The Listen: Sandoval's a fucking beast! Let me say this: the blast-beats on 'dis baby alone make World Downfall a motherfucking moshpit sina qua non. 😈 >
The Verdict: I like this better than Scum! There's more meat on dem bones if you know what I mean. Little bit more gristle that I can sink my teeth into thanks to the longer runtimes. Easy to see how this has become, through word of mouth, a Grindcore classic!
Okay, so after some prodding, I'll post my no bullshit top 10 metal albums. Sorry I haven't participated more in this thread up until now, with only a couple posts. But here goes. Hopefully the surprises will be interesting to some.
1. Black Sabbath - Heaven and Hell
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Dream Theater's Images and Words is my #2 album of all time (just behind Rush's Moving Pictures) and as prog metal, it is metal, so why isn't it #1 on this list? Because it's as much prog as metal and as much as I live for that combination, when I think of pure metal, I think of this - Heaven and Hell, so Heaven and Hell is #1 on my metal list. To me, this is the ultimate metal album. Songs are great. Melodies great. Dio is on fire, and truth be told, I could be happy listening to Dio sing the owners manual from a toaster oven, and this here is the pinnacle of Dio. Tony Iommi's riffs are as awesome as ever and his soloing is better than ever. With all that magic going on, those aren't even the best part.... that distinction goes to Geezer Butler and his positively wicked bass lines (and tone). Killer! Wishing well is the metal equivalent of Chris Squire doing Roundabout. It stands alone in the genre as far as I'm concerned. But every one of the 8 cuts is an absolute winner. I fell in love with this album when I discovered it via my first college roommate in 1981 and it's one of few albums which has stuck with me ever since. A massive winner no matter how much I hear it.
2. Dream Theater - Images and Words
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
This album is for me the pinnacle of progressive metal. Full of crazy time changes, massive loads of virtuosity, plenty of hooks, and real beauty in the songs. Anyone who thinks you can't play technical and fast and play with feel at the same time hasn't really listened to this album. DT veered further into pure tech later on and sadly lost some of that soul. Even as they sang/played songs/stories that the words indicated an attempt at human stories and connection, the music never again had the soul of this breakthrough album. And this is the only DT album where I really love James LaBrie's vocals. Beautifully expressive, soaring, and captivating. Like the music, he never achieved that glory again.
3. Fates Warning - Parallels
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
(just gonna' cut and paste comments from my prog diary entry)
This is the only other album that I ever dare to think of other than my fave, Dream Theater's Images and Words, when asked what the best progressive metal album out there is. It's perfectly consistent; 8 cuts, every one a winner and almost all are perfect 10s. This is an album that I can listen to when I'm not in the mood for prog, not in the mood for metal, not in the mood for prog metal, not in the mood for this album, and as soon as I start listening, this album puts me in the mood for this album. This is a sure fire winner any time of day, any day of the week.
So what makes this album so over the top fantastic? A whole lot of things:
First, it seamlessly integrates both heavy progressive elements (especially frequent time signature changes) and accessibility. This album is progressive metal through and through, but is loaded with hooky riffs and catchy choruses.
Second (not at all surprising for a progressive album), the musicianship is top notch. The twin guitars of Jim Matheos and Frank Aresti are as good as ever. Mark Zonder may be music's most underappreciated drummer, and he certainly shows why on this album. Bassist Joe DiBiase doesn't go off on flights of speed or tapping fretboard pyrotechnics, but rather engages less showy but equally demanding techniques in perfectly sympathetic support of the songs.
Third, this may be vocalist Ray Alder's finest performance across the groups expansive and august catalog. Powerful or subdued, soaring or understated, outgoing or introspective, he does it all and nails it in every regard.
Fourth, the production of Terry Brown here is totally on point here. I have always appreciated Brown's work, and this may be his pinnacle. Everything is in balance, and he gets Fates Warning to sound better than ever, but still 100% like Fates Warning.
Lastly (at least for this diary entry), this album is loaded with the most thoughtful lyrics you are likely to find in prog, metal, or definitely prog metal. And yes, there are some parallels in the lyrics; parallels I might not have thought of on my own, but which make perfect sense. These are real human stories and language is employed to maximum effect to deliver those stories, and they match that challenging progressive music like hand in glove.
4. Flotsam and Jetsam - Drift
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
I went through a major thrash phase in the early 90s. Chief among my thrash faves, more so than the likes of Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, or Anthrax, was Flotsam and Jetsam. Cuatro was my gateway in, and then the follow up, despite getting lackluster reviews, became my fave. The musicianship is oh, so tight, and this is as powerful as angry metal gets. You want catharsis? Here it is.... just remember to turn it up to 11!
5. Death Angel - Act III
This is the second in my first tier trifecta of second tier thrash metal artists. These guys amaze me. They could do straight killer thrash as well as anyone as they proved on their first two albums. But on this album, while keeping their thrash roots, they expand their compositional chops, integrate truly stellar acoustic work, and even get downright jazzy at times, and it all works to perfection. This is a frequent listen and I always emerge from the listen happier than when I went in.
6. Within Temptation - The Unforgiving
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
There was no way my top 10 metal albums was not going to have an entry from my favorite symphonic metal group, although this album comes across more like goth metal. No matter, this is another one I never tire of and at this point know I never will. A 2011 release, (gawd, has it been a dozen years already!?!?), this is my most recent entry in the list. This is also the album with the most truly catchy tunes on the list; hummable singalong choruses abound! Normally, that pop aesthetic flavor would diminish this album to some degree, but in this case, it actually enhances it. There's about six songs on this album I could put together on infinite repeat and never get bored. The graphic novel/concept approach holds together adequately well, but each song can stand easily on its own. A fantastic all around album.
7. Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
Really, the classic Dickenson 5-album run is really a five way tie for me. Picking a fave is nigh impossible. In the end, I usually come back to Piece of Mind though. It's totally metal and kicks off with my favorite Maiden song, Where Eagles Dare. I know the album has a few relative weak spots, but this is soooo classic metal and soooo classic Maiden, it has to make the list. All Hail Eddie.... and Up the Irons!
8. Metal Church - Blessing in Disguise
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
This is the last in my lesser known thrash trifecta. Metal Church is a seriously underappreciated metal band, and this album feels like the centerpiece of their best output. Then within the album itself, the three songs that make up the centerpiece of the nine tracks are the best the band had to offer. Anthem to the Estranged and Badlands are moody and melodic thrash while The Spell Can't Be Broken has the grooviest thrash riff you might ever hear.
9. Lacuna Coil - Karmacode
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
This Italian alt-metal outfit may not be musical virtuosos, and the shared rough vocals might not bode well for me, but in the end I end up loving Lacuna Coil. Smooth female lead vocalist Cristina Scabbia just oozes alt-metal cool for me, and the music is something I can definitely bang my head to. I've seen these guys live twice and both times it was positively fantastic. It's a shame they don't have the following here in the US that they enjoy in Europe, but the plus side is each time, I got to see them in small clubs and the close up experience was fantastic. The second time I saw them, they did half the show as an acoustic set and I got to hear just how amazing Scabbia's voice really is. Karmacode is easily my favorite album by the group, with a handful of songs that would be in their top 10 for me.
10. Cathedral - The Ethereal Mirror
Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.
I can't claim to be a big doom guy, but for some reason this album really lands in a happy metal place for me. It's sludgy and often slow, but it's also catchy sludge. I like the sound, I like the production, I like the riffs, and I like the attitude. This was an unexpected joy when I came across it upon its initial release, checking out recommended selections on a listening station at the Tower Records in Burlington, Massachusetts, USA. Picked it up on the spot and have been happy ever since.
... just has to be one of the singular brilliant Punk songs of all time! I LOVE how ND repurposes Black Sabbath's Children Of The Grave to dazzling & devastating effect!
MercuryTurn your back on the pay-you-back last callProfile St. Louis
damn damn damn! Right as you started directing or attempting to direct the conversation towards grindcore classics, Repo, I was sucked into a roiling vortex of work and distraction! (or maybe that roiling mass was my life and THIS site is the distraction... dum dum duuuuuuuuuum!)
Anyway, I think it's clear that Grindcore just ain'tr everyone's cuppa. I'd go so far as to say most people, even on music sites like this, find grindcore to be shite generally with very very few exceptions.
That being said, I plan on listening to Scum again. What a statement album and what an important beast. From what I recall it is a solid start to the movement's LP output but was topped almost immediately by every subsequent 80s and early 90s Napalm Death project as they incorporated more Death Metal and consistent and understandable and listenable music with more variety. Their 1988 follow up From Enslavement To Obliteration was their first great album. And the series of Peel Sessions released a s comp in '89 is also just as good. If you, dear reader, want more of that pure, unalloyed Grindcore sound that ND created, Peel Sessions is where it's at! It you love DeathGrind (the cool and "subtle" mix of Death Metal and Grindcore) and are more a fan of Terrorizer's World Downfall, well yeah almost every other early LP and EP by Napalm Death is more up your alley. It's alllll good.
As for this VERSUS match, I am 99% sure after my Scum relisten I will still say easily World Downfall gets my vote. It's a perfect album perhaps the greatest grind album ever - certainly on the tip of my tongue if someone asks me "Merc, best grind album, GO!" Sandoval is a beast behind the kit of course and if you love Morbid Angel's revolutionary drum work from the same year's Altars of Madness, you will love this album's drums - sort of the maniacal and feral, rabies infested brother of the rhythms on the Morbid Angel epochal debut. Also there are NO SOLOS, just riff and beat after riff and beat of pure raging madness and genius and some incredible vocals. The bass work is groovy at times, but mostly just skull rattling and aggressive. Again it's not only perhaps the best grindcore or deathgrind album ever, it's also top 10-20 all time album for me. I adore it.
---------------
I don't think you'll get much traction on this subject, Repo. I may be wrong but I feel grindcore is mostly hated or laughed at. Oh well. Like I am doing this metal top 100 project and I have gotten 5 awesome top 100 charts from me, ledzep, gowi, rockyraccoon and you, and I am making a nerdy spreadsheet to keep track of scoring the most popular albums from those 5 top 100s and, so far, only 1 grindcore album has appeared more than once (The Inalienable Dreamless by Discordance Axis... great album by the way, and shout out to Led Zep) and otherwise I think 20 of the 22 grindcore albums were on my list lol. It's a niche and it's a weird sound for sure. _________________ -Ryan
You cannot post new topics in this forum You cannot reply to topics in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot vote in polls in this forum
mickilennial
RockyRaccoon
Repo
Fischman
Mercury
