MetalMania! My Metal Reviews

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Endarkenment by Anaal Nathrakh
Styles: Black Metal, Grindcore
Release Date: October 2, 2020

As I stated in my previous review, I'm a grindcore fan, but I also want something more original on the table, even if that means only playing with grindcore to create something quite different. In 2001, that wish would have been granted had I gotten into grindcore as a child. Anaal Nathrakh, a Birmingham black metal band that takes their name from an Excalibur quote, created a new form of black metal with key similarities to grindcore and industrial music with their debut album, The Codex Necro, and they've worked with that style ever since. You'd think that by the point of their eleventh studio album, Endarkenment, they or their fanbase would be tired of it. At the request of LedZep, I'll be reviewing Anaal Nathrakh's new album.

This album is fucking insane. If fans were getting tired of the sound, then they have a good reason to stop. Anaal Nathrakh albums fluctuate in quality, and Endarkenment represents a positive fluctuation. The title track that opens the album quickly switches from black metal density, grindcore insanity, and even POWER METAL VOCALS quickly and without a moment to build up the switch, and it all works because the song is driven Irrumator's crazy-fuck blast beats. Not to mention, the vocalist, Dave Hunt / V.I.T.R.I.O.L, has many different extreme metal voices that he effortlessly switches from as if he was fucking Mel Blanc. The distinct sound incorporates grindcore and industrial metal influences while focusing on rhythm almost and much as atmosphere.

Not only that, the presence of the album is powerfully sinister. That's a key factor in the "good vs. bad" of black metal: is its presence real? Most black metal tries to sound "evil" or "spooky," so by this point such a thing is very hard to get right anymore. Did you know that 1,000 black metal albums can be made in a year these days? If you don't believe me, check out the custom chart on Rateyourmusic and see all of the top black metal albums of 2020. The act of villainy in black metal is not original anymore, so how are Anaal Nathrakh still able to pull this off?

I guess the only flaw of the album is the same flaw that many albums by older bands have: it's pretty much Anaal Nathrakh. There's hardly anything new here, and much of what I said could apply to many of their albums. And as expected, there's some filler. But make no mistake, this is a great album for the black metal fan and a good addition to the Anaal Nathrakh catalogue. The black metal duo didn't waste a moment trying to make this album worthwhile.

8.0
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

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Undisputed Attitude by Slayer
Styles: Crossover Thrash
Release Date: May 28, 1996

The whole idea of putting the thrash scene in punk and the thrash scene in metal worked out well, because we ended up with bands like Suicidal Tendencies. Even metal legends like Slayer can get behind that, which is why they would finally make a punk album after so many metal albums. Some of their early albums had elements of crossover thrash, especially the twenty-eight minute long Reign in Blood, but you'd think they'd have something new to offer. In my opinion, the fifth and final album of the classic era, Seasons in the Abyss, was their best album. You'd think the switch to punk would allow for new ideas, but Slayer had their hits so they probably didn't need to make it any better than what it was.

Undisputed Attitude is a post-hayday Slayer album which tones down the satanism and anti-religion of their earlier albums and brings the fans something more straightforward. The question is simple: does it work for them? Mostly. Crossover thrash is a very unoriginal genre one you do what can be done with the basics, and Slayer didn't bother doing anything above and beyond. It's no more essential to the scene than any Municipal Waste album. But it's not bad. Slayer's energy never once suffers for the lack of originality, so there's still something to hold onto. But all of the songs are practicallty the same.

Compared to other crossover thrash albums, it's good enough. But compared to other Slayer albums, there doesn't seem to be a need to listen to this album unless your a Slayer completionist. The idea of a Slayer hardcore punk album sounds incredible to a punk and metal fan like myself, but the idea was not really treated like a good one.

6.5
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

[LedZep]

Ooh I missed the Anaal Nathrakh review it seems, glad you liked it. I've put 2020 on hold for now, but when I return it's gonna be one of the first things in the queue along with Skáphe³.
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Finally updated the overall chart

2020s
90s

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Stop the Bleeding by Tourniquet
Styles: Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal
Release Date: July 1, 1990

Tourniquet is a rare breed: a Christian metal band that kicks some fucking ass. Other than the lyrical content, Tourniquet is practically no different from your average thrash band. A bunch of 20-something Californians wanted to form a metal band, and they released an album soon afterwards. They had a classic era with a classic line-up and they fell out of favor when their quality of songwriting took a dive, and since then they've been making records for their fans that take jumps and dives in quality. Lyrically, they're very Christian, and despite having some quality music they're nothing compared to the giants of thrash. But if you are a thrash fan, you really need to check them out. If you believe in God then you REALLY need to check them out.

Stop the Bleeding was released on the very year that the band formed. That's pretty impressive considering the fact that some bands take a few years to finally release an album. Tourniquet's debut is loaded with impressive thrashing and well-structured rhythms and solos. Most of the tracks are equally good and the album never strays into monotony despite being a part of such a monotonous genre. Even The Legacy by Testament got monotonous. But the most impressive trait of Tourniquet's debut is that they manage to write great lyrics about God without making the biggest mistake a Christian act could make: sounding too preachy. Occasionally, they'll even tackle the religious hypocrisy that has shamed the whole of religion for centuries.

Festering boils, chronic disease, for seven days, complete isolation.
The test for leprosy, find you unclean.
Consigned to neglect outside the city gates, tear all your clothes and cover your face.

A bunch of Christians writing a song about the treatment the sick got from their own community and the victimization that comes with it? It's a pretty interesting thing to hear. Not to mention, these are some pretty good lyrics on their own. They handle the common metal themes of sickness, isolation and even the more gross and gory side without pushing it too far.

Tourniquet's early works, especially their debut, are key to the thrash metal collection. They show early stages of great talent and are able to keep themselves from being lumped in with the sappy preachy acts because they take their metal reputation seriously. Sure, they aren't Metallica, but they're fun and surprisingly meaningful.

9.0
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

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Ride the Lightning by Metallica
Styles: Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal
Release Date: July 27, 1984

In recent times Master of Puppets was my choice for the best metal album ever. The choice between Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets was an easy one: noisier production on an album where the band had not yet fully matured but they were close, or clearer production on an album where the band's style had fully matured and with the inclusion of occasional progressive metal elements? What an easy choice that was! But after coming here, I put more focus on ordering my albums and making charts. Metal music is my favorite style, and I've considered Metallica to be the crowning act of metal for years. But after ordering my chart around, I began questioning myself and my tastes. Was I being fully honest with myself? I always felt that there was something holding me back concerning how I was treating Metallica. I always felt that Master of Puppets was a little bloated but ignored it because that album helped shape my love of metal and the way I see music. But I'm going through a lot of changes thanks to my activity here, and I began raising the question: Was I being biased towards Ride the Lightning?

The big question I had asked myself before was which was the best Metallica album? When you think about when Metallica finally brought their signature style to perfection, Master of Puppets was the easy choice. But after finishing up a chart of my 100 favorite metal albums, I realized the big question was different: what was the best METAL album? The choice was close, and I had to ask for some opinions concerning both albums to see what they said and if I would agree with one opinion or another. I made my choice from there, and I've seen thrash metal in a whole new way. Metallica may have fully matured on Master of Puppets, but some of the greatest strengths of Ride the Lightning suffered and it made Master of Puppets bloated. Ride the Lightning redefined metal in a way that Master of Puppets couldn't. The best is Ride the Lightning.

Ride the Lightning starts out with a big bang to let you know what you're dealing with: "Fight Fire with Fire." This raw energy and thrash power at extreme speeds is only matched by Pleasure to Kill by Kreator. Throughout the rest of the album we see early examples of Metallica staples that, thanks to the trait of early development and the production values, almost feel primitive. The title track is a perfect bridge between the raw energy of "Fight Fire with Fire" and the melodic, Gothic poetry of "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The album's A-side gets softer until we reach the band's first power ballad, "Fade to Black," which deals with suicidal topics and has reached the hearts and souls of many who then knew that somebody understood them, giving them a reason to live. Metallica was no longer the simple but talented thrash act that the debut suggested. They had gone above and beyond.

But the bump in the road comes right after the high point. The first half of the B-side is usually referred to as the weak point. The album goes directly to the original raw energy of the first half of side A, but both songs are constructed like they were supposed to be on some hard rock/heavy metal album, so the overall presence of the album may or may not suffer, depending on who you ask. The way I see it, every album has a weak point. This is no problem, and the songs still shred the shit out of you. The album picks itself back up once it reaches another Metallica concert essential, "Creeping Death," which revives the melody and energy of "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and displays some of the most epic riffs and solos the band has ever written. Ride the Lightning ends with the instrumental epic, "The Call of Ktulu." This time, the aura is deeper and less emotional than "Fade to Black," but there are still plenty of instances of heavy metal rooted in pairing shredding with melody. Instead of taking the deep rooted angry root, the album ends with a pure display of instrumental aggression.

It's so funny. My prototpye metal chart had Ride the Lightning directly at the bottom: number 100. And now it skyrocketed all the way to the top, and is in the top ten albums of all-time on my overall. When I think about what metal really is and how much can be done with it, there's no better example of what a single album can do without losing itself inside itself than Ride the Lightning. And I'm actually very happy that I've come to this conclusion now because opening up a new possibility for metal means I have a whole new world to discover and I'm eagerly awaiting the many new discoveries. Ride the Lightning is superior than Master of Puppets because it does not bloat itself with unneccesary progressive filler and every note feels essential to the end result. It goes without saying that I recommend this to anyone who wants to get into metal.

10.0
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

[LedZep]

Never heard of Tourniquet, they sound pretty interesting. If you’ve got nothing else to do, bump this one:

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Doliu by Clouds (RO)

It’s some tasty atmospheric doom, but I’m yet to hear anyone else’s thoughts on this band.
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Finally updated the overall chart

2020s
90s

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Doliu by Clouds (RO)
Styles: Atmospheric Doom Metal

At the suggestion of LedZep, I decided to spin an obscure doom metal album. I admit, this is the first time I've heard of the band Clouds, and it's the first time I've heard a doom metal album with a heavily atmospheric sound. I was having a little trouble deciding what to listen to this morning until I remembered that LedZep replied to one of my earlier reviews, so here it goes.

As expected, an atmospheric doom metal album builds itself on epics. I'll be fully honest. I love the idea of atmospheric doom metal being more of a "thing," but I wasn't really in love with the album itself. I didn't think anything very creative was happening. The instrumentation was fine, nothing more and nothing less. It was a perfectly fit album for this cold winter morning where all I can really do is enjoy a good cup of coffee and work on some personal shit around the house. Perfectly fit for headphone music, very good production for an obscure doom band, and the singer's voice is exquisite. It reminds me of Peter Steele of Type O Negative and Nick Cave. With lyrics like "love will be no more," it's easy to make the connection. So even though the album was missing any inventive traits, the intense winter atmosphere and the perfectly Gothic vocalist, really helps to bring out the most of the band's abilities at the time of recording.

There are times when the calmer, piano-driven moments of the almost feel almost too cute for its genre. This charm does manage to make the darker and heavier moments in the album more effective, and what's more is that once I was fully prepared for what I was about to face: an hour long album of atmospheric metal epics, the album very rarely felt too long. Maybe that's because the aura was absolutely perfect? In fact, I'd say that the aura was just as well-performed as that of Panopticon by Isis, which is very rare for a metal album to achieve. It's just a shame that it wasn't an original album.

I think this debut was a good enough one for Clouds to make a name for themselves, but I don't really have a lot of interest in checking out later releases. With tht aside, I'm still glad I heard the album today because it has a perfect atmosphere for a chilly morning like this.

7.0
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Do it yourself and let me play my music: https://www.besteveralbums.com/thechart.php?c=61802

[LedZep]

[mickilennial]

RIP