Originally, this post started out as a Stepping Stone, after I bought a cheap used copy of Slipknot at a local record store and proceeded to tumble down the nostalgia rabbit hole. But given that this year marks the album’s 20th anniversary, I felt like it deserved the proper Heavy…
The End of Heartache (2004) may be one of the closest examples, that I can think of, of a perfect record. The album is an undeniable classic of modern metal, that set both the bar and tone for countless acts to come. Yet it remains one of those albums that,…
Every Time I Die frontman Keith Buckley has garnered a reputation as one of the best lyricists in heavy music not named Neil Fallon. His use of evocative, and slightly left-of-center, imagery and penchant for finely-executed, well-placed couplets rendered his words far more essential and distinctive than all but a…
What qualifies an album for this feature? Its name hints that it has something to do with chronology, with old albums to which we return. And that’s definitely a part of it but, for me at least, it’s more about the grandeur of an album and its importance for the genre in which it was released. In that regard at least, there are few albums more deserving of the feature than Nightfall In Middle Earth. While the Blind Guardian albums which preceded it had already established a lot of the modern power metal sound, Nightfall in Middle Earth still represents one of the peaks of the band’s style. It is one of their most complete albums, blending the heavier, thrash influenced sounds of their earlier career with the polish and dexterity of their latter career. It was also the first Blind Guardian album distributed in the US, leading to Blind Guardian’s subsequent international success and massive career. It’s also just a damn fine album, filled with memorable moments.
There are few albums I can remember anticipating as much as The Amity Affliction’s sophomore effort Youngbloods (2010). My friends and I were stoked its very Bring Me the Horizon-esque lead single, The first thing you’ll notice when comparing
Just two years after their debut, Cathedral pumped up the tempo and incorporated a slew of influences stretching beyond their solid, but somewhat limited, doom metal sound on Forest of Equilibrium. Shades of sludge à la Black Flag and The Melvins are most apparent, but the band reaches further beyond the low-and-slow realm to pull in influences from hard rock, heavy metal and progressive rock. Most importantly, the band’s vibrant personality sheds its skin entirely and reveals its true colors, thanks in large part by an unhinged, dynamic vocal performance from Lee Dorrian. It’s an exceptional combination that slightly edges out the band’s initial groundbreaking efforts. Whereas several bands contributed to the sound developed in part by Cathedral on Forest of Equilibrium, there’s never really been an album that sounds quite like The Ethereal Mirror, and it remains a multifaceted album with reverberations felt in music from the likes of Baroness, Pallbearer and a decent chunk of modern stoner metal.
As we keep saying, experiences and context play a huge role in our appreciation of music. That’s what makes pretense to complete objectivity when talking about music so silly. There is certainly a degree of professionalism and detachment which is possible and necessary, but musical enjoyment is inherently a subjective…
This Californian band’s first iteration lasted a decade, until 1997 (they are now reunited and working on new music, who’s quality is yet to be tested). During that decade they released four albums, with a clear difference between the first two and the latter two. Those two first album, and the debut especially, are masterclasses in progressive metal and represent to this day some of the best actualization of why progressive metal is great. They are technical but furiously aggressive, drawing from the pools of progressive rock and thrash equally. The result is two fantastically deep albums with the first being a timeless classic which has sadly gone forgotten.
The voice of Rodriguez is instantly classic; some peculiar timbre of his resonant tenor sounds perfectly timeless, like Neil Young or Bob Dylan with an added unpretentious grit gleaned from hanging on the hard streets of 1960’s Detroit. Born as Sixto Rodriguez into a poor Mexican-American family in 1942, Rodriguez…
When you’re intimately familiar with a band – particularly a legendary one, like Judas Priest – we tend to think that we can no longer be surprised. We’ve heard their sound, and we know what they have to offer. While this attitude is perfectly warranted, it can blind us to masterpieces…
