Bands I Hate

Today it is time to explore some bands I hate.  I have never really done a post like this before.  I have talked about not liking bands, I have reviewed albums I did not like, but this is the first time I am naming names of bands I truly dislike.  A lot of people are going to claim I am an elitist, maybe that is true.  A lot of these are bands that are popular, but that's not what I don't like them.  I like plenty of popular bands, I have been a big Metallica fan since I got into metal and they are as popular as metal gets.  These bands simply do not do anything for me.  If I offend some readers, I don't really care.  This is not a forum, these are my opinions.  If you like one of these bands, good for you, I don't.  You probably hate something I love.   

So, without further ado: Bands I Hate:

SLIPKNOT

I liked Slipknot at one point.  I would never say they were a favorite of mine, but I did enjoy their self-titled release quite a bit when it came out.  To this day, there are some songs on there I still enjoy, but I have not listened to the album in quite some time.  Then came Iowa, and I bought that album.  That one is a difficult listen, the band was clearly trying to be the most brutal and extreme band they could.  Again, there are some good songs, but that album rang hollow to me.  It didn't feel authentic.  I don't know how else to describe it.  They just seemed to be trying too hard.  Then Vol. III hit and they tried to scale back some of that extremity and return a bit to the self-titled release, and they completely lost me.  I never really looked back at them from that point on.  I have heard the tracks on Liquid Metal over the years and nothing has convinced me that I have ever missed out on anything.  And then I saw them live (I was there for Gojira and Behemoth).  I always thought they were supposed to have some great live show, but man, they really sucked when I saw them.  They did not have much energy and they sounded horrible.  Since then, I simply do not care for the band.

DEFTONES

Again, there was a time I liked this band.  I had Adrenaline, and there were a lot of songs I liked on it.  This was when they were trying to sound more like Korn and other nu-metal acts, but it was a fun release.  I completely skipped over the next album and checked them out again on White Pony, and that album bored the fuck out of me.  It is currently hailed as some kind of landmark release, but I don't see it.  I was annoyed by the whiny vocals and the music simply did not do anything for me.  I did like the track they did with Maynard James Keenan, but that was it.   Again, I have heard the songs that make it onto Liquid Metal or the other channels and not one of them has changed my opinion.  I am always baffled when I see people hail this band as revolutionary.  I simply don't get the hype.

LITURGY

Alright, let's start with the album cover.  What the fuck am I looking at?  And that's just the start of the pretentious bullshit that comes from this band.  They refer to themselves as "transcendental black metal" which makes me stabby.  The music, if you can call it that, is just a fucking mess.  I get it, they are trying to be experimental, throwing a bunch of random shit together, but it simply does not work.  At some point, band leader Haela Ravenna Hunt-Hendrix decided to start incorporating some kind of glitch effect, which is used frequently throughout the music in the last couple of albums.  It's not clever, it's fucking obnoxious.  I have tried to sit down and listen to this stuff multiple times and I can rarely make it through an entire song before skipping to the next one, eventually giving up completely.  I am even more baffled when I read some reviews that declare this album one of the most important albums in music in the last several years.  I can't stand this fucking band.

DEAFHEAVEN

Deafheaven is made up of a bunch of indie/emo kids cosplaying as a black metal band (or post-black metal or whatever the fuck).  And that's fine, if the music was at least genuine, but I just cannot get past the fact that none of them seem to actually like metal.  They take what Alcest was doing before them and water it down even more for the shoegaze crowd.  The music is ultra-repetitive and it ultimately just sounds like any other indie band, just with screeching vocals.  I hesitate to even find the real black metal influences.  Truthfully, they sound like the only black metal band they are familiar with was the aforementioned Alcest (and I actually do like some of Alcest's music before anyone calls me an elitist).  I just don't get it.  I wouldn't be worked up about it if there weren't people claiming this was some massive step forward for the genre or a masterpiece.  But there are and so I am.

SPIRITBOX

Spiritbox is one of the bands currently getting shoved down listeners' throats on Liquid Metal (I have been listening to a lot of that channel driving between courthouses).  I could probably branch this out to include any other nu-nu-metal band, but this is the one that the channel seems to have the biggest hard-on for, so this band gets the brunt of my rage.  Seriously, we all decided nu-metal was an atrocity 20+ years ago, who the fuck thought it was a good idea to revive the genre?  There's some elements that are fine, I guess, and I don't hate all their songs, but I am already sick to death of them, and they have only been around for a few years.  

SLAUGHTER TO PREVAIL

Holy hell does this band suck.  I could probably branch this one out to include most deathcore bands, a genre that is nearly universally a horrendous thing.  But, we will stick to Slaughter to Prevail for now, I'm sure there has to be at least one or two decent deathcore bands, and I vaguely recall liking Carnifex and Through the Eyes of the Dead a little bit, but it's been a long time since I have heard them.  Anyway, Slaughter to Prevail is a Russian deathcore band and the singer has had to fend off allegations of ultra right-wing and Nazi ideologies.  But beyond that, there is the fact that the band is just simply terrible.  They try very hard to be ultra-brutal and it just comes out as a loud mess.  

LORNA SHORE

Here is another band that has a ton of hype around them.  For a long time they were just another deathcore band, then they started incorporating some symphonic elements and then they got new singer Will Ramos, and suddenly people were saying he was this incredible new talent with some of the most extreme and brutal vocals of all time.  I have heard him, he is nothing special.  There have been vocalists like this in brutal death metal bands dating back to the 1990's.  The slam genre is pretty much all vocalists like this.  He's decent, just nothing unique, and I could like him a little bit more if the music wasn't just mind-numbingly boring. 

SLEEP TOKEN

Sleep Token is one of the most popular newer bands in the metal scene the last couple of years, which is quite a feat considering they really are not a metal band.  Not for the most part anyway.  The big deal with Sleep Token is they combine a variety of disparate styles and genres and can shift and change easily across songs, and sometimes even within songs.  There's nothing wrong with that, so why are they here?  Because of the countless articles I have seen claiming they are some kind of saviors of metal or elevating the metal genre to something more.  It's no secret that there have been a few pop stars that have been borrowing metal in their music for some time and Sleep Token seems to be an extension of that.  But as I have always preached, metal is much better when it is outside the mainstream.  The last time we had a movement of bands combining metal with mainstream genres, nu-metal was the result, and we all know how that went.

GAEREA

Why do so many of these damn bands on this post wear masks?  There's nothing inherently wrong with it, I listen to other bands that wear masks (Uada, Ghoul, Batushka), but a lot of these modern artists doing it just don't do much for me.  Now, I saw it described best recently that Gaerea is black metal for people who don't listen to black metal, and that seems to have hit the nail on the head.  It's like the band members studied black metal and knew what elements to put in it, and just fucked it all up.  There is an episode of Parks and Rec in which the character Mark talks about a camel being the result of a committee trying to make a horse, this is what we have here.  The elements seem to be here, but the result simply is not black metal.  I wanted to like this band, I really did, but I just don't.

Catching Up: 2020 Part 1

My last Top Albums of the Year post was in 2019.  I thought I would try to come back and do a post for each year I have missed out on, but I would have to go back and listen to everything again.  This is going to take some time.  I have a LOT to go through to get my thoughts out on some recent releases.  I thought the easiest way of doing this was to highlight five random albums and eventually be able to formulate some type of list as I get to the end of the additions to my collection.  These are physical copies only, so if I am missing something when all is said and done, it's because I was not able to procure a physical copy for whatever reason.

AKHLYS: MELINOE

Melinoe is the Greek goddess of nightmares and madness, and that is an appropriate jumping-off point for this album.  This is what nightmares sound like.  The sound is dense and chaotic with pounding drums and murky riffs, combined with sepulchral vocals.  It does an astounding job of building a tense and uncomfortable atmosphere and refusing to relent.  There is very little here I would classify as melodic, even the lighter tones come across as more dissonant, adding to the oppressive nature of the rest of the music.  This is not an album to listen to alone with the lights off.

MONGREL'S CROSS: ARCANA, SCRYING AND REVELATION

I checked out an album by Aussie blackened thrashers Mongrel's Cross several years back but kind of lost track of them afterwards.  This is their third full-length and the band has matured their sound somewhat.  This time around Absu mastermind Proscriptor has joined the fray as the primary vocalist.  One thing Mongrel's Cross does quite well is weave intricate guitar leads into their particular brand of savagery.  The reference point is latter-day Destroyer 666, which is definitely an admirable goal, but the execution is just not quite there.

PERDITION TEMPLE: SACRAMENTS OF DESCENSION

Tampa, FL has long been a hotbed for evil-sounding death metal and Perdition Temple are a more recent entry into that history.  Something of a supergroup, the band features members of other stalwart bands such as Ares Kingdom, Angelcorpse, Malevolent Creation and Impiety.  With that kind of pedigree, it is easy to imagine what the band would sound like: raw and primal death metal with a focus on intensity and dark atmosphere.  This is an absolutely filthy, bludgeoning assault on the listener. 

TESTAMENT: TITANS OF CREATION

Testament has been my favorite band, or damn near the top of the list, since I bought Low back when I was in middle school.  That album made an immediate impact on me and every album (with the possible exception of Demonic) have similarly made an impact.  We are now four albums into the second stage of Testament's career after Chuck Billy's cancer scare forced the band into hiatus for a few years, and each album has surpassed the one before it.  This is the best Testament album since The Gathering with one of the best Testament songs of all time ("Dream Deceiver").  It is an instant classic in the band's already impressive discography.

THE BLACK DAHLIA MURDER: VERMINOUS 

As it turned out, this was the last album we would get from The Black Dahlia Murder with iconic frontman Trevor Strnad who died suddenly in 2022.  That is absolutely a shame because TBDM had really become an incredible band over the years.  Wearing their influences on their sleeves, you knew what to expect from each release: frenetic melodeath that would simply steamroll the listener.  This was probably my favorite album from the band since Nocturnal.  It will be interesting to see how the band moves on.  Strnad's death was an absolute tragedy.

Hateful Transgression: Hateful Transgression (2015)

I have been looking for this release for a long time.  Well, sort of.  You see, I purchased it a long time ago and never received it because the label I bought it from folded shortly after I originally bought it.  It took a long time before it became clear I was not going to get it.  That kind of thing really irks me, so it became a mission to get it in physical format.  After awhile, I just set up some alerts on a couple of sites and let it sit.  Then, earlier this summer, I received an alert that it was available.  You can bet I jumped on it.  This is the kind of thing that is fun when you collect physical media.

So, why this release?  Well, Hateful Transgression is experimenting with a crossover of genres that I am not sure has been attempted before.  The band sought to combine black metal with slam death metal.  It is an intriguing idea for sure.  

First of all, we have to talk about the vocals.  They are certainly interesting as vocalist Frank Jonker attempts to blend the two styles.  So, he is kind of doing a raspy pig squeal at times, which definitely comes across as kind of odd.  But it does kind of work.

The mix of the genres tends to favor the black metal elements.  There are elements of slam death at times, from the blast beats to the occasional chugging section, as well as the aforementioned pig squeals, but the black metal sections tend to dominate the sound.  There is not nearly enough of the slam parts to really satisfy someone specifically looking for that style.

Where the release falters is in the transitions between sections of the songs.  It is not at all seemless and often feels jarring.  It is clear that this is something of an experimental release and the band members have not quite worked out all of the issues before recording it. 

Despite the issues, this is an intriguing release.  Hateful Transgression released a split and an EP after this one that I may have to track down to see if they smoothed out the rough edges.  

Coalescing Putrefaction Split (2020)

I am going to slowly work my way into things and see if I can get going more often on this thing.  Maybe if it takes I can get to a regular posting schedule again.  One easy way to do that is to cover a short, three-song split.  This release contains one song each from Unnatural, Rotted and Fetid Zombie.

Up first is "Cadaver Euphoria" by Joliet, IL-based Unnatural.  This is as grimy and disgusting as death metal gets.  The riffs are sludgy and the vocals sound utterly decayed.  The track is fairly straightforward, without a lot of twists and turns or tempo shifts, just leading inexorably to the track's demise.  Unnatural seems to have disbanded without a proper full-length release and the man behind most of the instruments sadly passed away.  It's a shame, this band had some potential.

I swear I have heard Rotted before, but I cannot place it.  Another Illinois-based band, Rotted's track is called "Consuming Genocide" and it has a bit more of a slow, grinding early Bolt Thrower sound to the opening track with gurgling, grumbling vocals.  Eventually, the song kicks into another gear for a little bit of a faster pace.  The members of Rotted have all been in other bands, none of whom I have much experience with, if any.   

The reason I bought this split is because I try to track down as much of the Fetid Zombie stuff as I can get.  I have covered Mark Riddick's band on this site multiple times.  Riddick is the only full-time member of the band and of course provides the artwork for all of his own releases, as well as those of a lot of other bands.  Fetid Zombie still remains an underground marvel musically though.  I have no idea why death metal fans do not talk about this band more.  

This track is called "Doomed to Lifelessness" and features vocals by Chris Monroy (Fueled by Fire and Skeletal Remains) and lead guitars by James Malone (Arsis).  This is a very track from the earlier two on the split because it is a much more modern death metal sound due to the presence of Monroy and Malone.  It's a cleaner production, while still being a nod to other early 90's death metal bands like Benediction or some of the early Swedish bands like Edge of Sanity.  The lead work by Malone is a major highlight on this split and his solo is very impressive.  

Fetid Zombie's track is easily the best one on the split, but I was reasonably impressed with all three.  It's a shame neither Rotted nor Unnatural have any full-length releases.  I would be interested in seeing what they can do.  Fetid Zombie always impresses.

It's a Shitty List Post

I'm bored sitting here on a Saturday night after spending most of the day listening to Motorhead, Grim Reaper, Omen, Forced Entry and Mercyful Fate today.  So yeah, I'm in a big metal mood.  Which got me opening up links on my homepage and led me to this list here.  This is the Top 15 Most Underrated Albums by Metal Legends.  I used to do a lot of list posts where I would rip apart the opinions of the writers.  They are generally easier to do than album review posts, so let's see what we have here.

BLACK SABBATH: HEADLESS CROSS

I really do like this album, which has the less-than-legendary singer Tony Martin on it instead of Ozzy Osbourne, Ronnie James Dio or Ian Gillan.  This era also saw the release of the very forgettable Forbidden album (which featured an Ice-T cameo).  This one is not my favorite release from the Tony Martin era though, I really preferred Cross Purposes myself.  This one is fine, but like I said, I would have picked something different.

JUDAS PRIEST: TURBO

No.  Just no.  This is the album where Judas Priest decided to bend to the trends and incorporate synth-rock and hair metal.  It's not all bad, but to call it underrated is incredibly generous.  If I were to pick a Judas Priest album that is underrated, it's Jugulator which was the first album with Tim "Ripper" Owens taking over for Rob Halford on vocals.  That album has some great riffs and Owens's soaring vocals are a close approximation for Halford.  And it's almost universally hated because of Halford's absence.  Had it come out under a different band name, it would likely get more respect.

PANTERA: POWER METAL

Here we go.  This is one I can agree with.  Most Pantera fans have completely disavowed anything prior to Cowboys from Hell.  The band has too.  It doesn't make a ton of sense because Power Metal sounds a LOT like Cowboys.  It does feature some rather regrettable tracks and some of the lyrics are rather juvenile, but this is where Dimebag really started coming into his own.  He just perfected it on the next album.

BLACK SABBATH: SABOTAGE

Apparently Black Sabbath gets two entries on this list.  I am not sure I would call this one underrated.  This is from the classic era of Sabbath with Ozzy on vocals, but internal strife was tearing the band apart.  The album features some great songs like "Hole in the Sky" and "Symptom of the Universe" that are highly regarded by fans.  It also features the annoying "Am I Going Insane", so it's not all positive.

VAN HALEN: WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST

I know very little about this album.  First of all, Van Halen is not a metal band.  Secondly, I never really liked Van Halen other than a few songs here and there.  The only song I am familiar with is "Everybody Wants Some", which is a song I played in pep band in high school.  So I don't have an opinion one way or the other either about this album or if there is a better album to consider from Van Halen.  They would not have made my list at all for obvious reasons.

METALLICA: LOAD

The least surprising entry in this list, not because I agree with it, but because people have been waxing nostalgic about this album for a long time.  Everybody says it's not really that bad.  Yes it is.  There's some good songs on here.  I can agree with that, but I haven't listened to this album in probably 20 years and there's a damn good reason for it.  I was utterly disappointed with it when it came out, and my feelings have not really changed much since.  There is a Metallica album I would put on this list, but it's coming up later in the post.

QUEENSRYCHE: PROMISED LAND

I do love this album.  This was my first Queensryche album after hearing songs like "I Am I" and "One More Time" on the radio.  This album has some really great songs on it.  It's dark and brooding and catchy as hell.  And "Someone Else?" is one of the most beautiful and heart-breaking songs I have ever heard.  I am a little surprised at its inclusion here because I was not aware it was not well-regarded (it has an 80% review score on Metal Archives), but I guess it was basically the last great album the band released before descending into mediocrity and it's not much like the much more well-known Operation: Mindcrime.

DIO: STRANGE HIGHWAYS

I am going to admit something embarrassing.  I am actually not all that familiar with Dio's solo work after The Last in Line.  I love Dio's voice, but generally preferred him during his time with Rainbow and Black Sabbath/Heaven and Hell.  So this is another album I don't actually have an opinion about just due to my unfamiliarity with Dio's work in the 1990's in particular.  I do have Magica and I like that album quite a bit.  Maybe I will track this one down.

MEGADETH: YOUTHANASIA

This is another album I truly love.  It was the first Megadeth album I bought (the same week I bought the above Queensryche album in fact), though I had heard my brother's copy of Countdown to Extinction enough to be familiar with the band.  This was the beginning of a rough patch for Megadeth that took years to come back from, but there is not a bad track on this one.  "A Tout Le Monde" is the classic and it is a chilling song about depression and suicide, but the album also features the crushing "Train of Consequences" and "Addicted to Chaos".  

METALLICA: DEATH MAGNETIC

This is the Metallica album I hinted at earlier.  This was finally a decent return to form for the band with their best album since the black album.  It was oddly polarizing though.  Lots of people still hated it, so it definitely deserves its spot on this list.  "All Nightmare Long" is a damn good track and a worthy addition to the band's catalog.  

MASTODON: ONCE MORE 'ROUND THE SUN

I may be kind of in the minority, but my favorite Mastodon songs are the ones that are catchy as hell with drummer Brann Dailor on vocals ("Show Yourself" is one of my favorite Mastodon songs).  This album features several of them, such as "The Mother Load" and "Ember City".  So, I actually like this album quite a bit.  I had actually taken a break from Mastodon for a couple of albums before this one came out and I had to grab it after hearing a few songs.  I understand this album's placement here because it is a little more radio-friendly and not as complex.  But, that's what makes it so good.

TESTAMENT: LOW

Maybe it's because I am such a huge Testament fan (I still consider them my favorite band of all time), but I am surprised at this album being on the list.  This is another one that was my first album by the band, so I have soft feelings for it, but this is still maybe my favorite album by the band, or at the least very close.  It is true that Alex Skolnick was gone at this point, but James Murphy filled in admirably in his absence.  This album took Testament in a darker, more aggressive direction and even saw them experimenting with death metal ("Dog Faced Gods").  I would put the far more death metal-leaning Demonic on this list, as it is often maligned.  I think Low is fairly well-regarded.

LAMB OF GOD: VII: STURM UND DRANG

I don't dislike Lamb of God, I'm just not a big fan and find them kind of boring.  I haven't checked out anything from the band since 2006's Sacrament and I do not really see that changing.  They are fine, just don't really do much for me.  I did not even stick around for the entirety of their set when I saw them live (I was there for Napalm Death).  So this is another one I have no opinion on one way or the other.  I have never heard it.  

BLACK SABBATH: DEHUMANIZER

Black Sabbath gets a THIRD entry on this list?  Come on, now I know this thing is messing with me, plus that's just kind of lazy.  Dehumanizer was a reunion album with Dio and it is very well-loved in metal circles.  Maybe not as much as Heaven and Hell or Mob Rules, but it is considered a classic.  It has a review score of 89% on Metal Archives.  That is not an underrated album.  If you want another truly underrated Black Sabbath album, it's Born Again, the only album with Deep Purple singer Ian Gillan on it.

OPETH: PALE COMMUNION

This is another band that I lost track of for awhile.  I think 2005's Ghost Reveries was the last album I checked out by Opeth.  I just got kind of bored by them.  They were becoming so focused on unconventionality that they kind of forgot how to write good songs.  So no, once again I do not have an opinion on this one.  I haven't heard it and I do not see that changing any time soon.  I have liked what I have heard of their new song though.  You know what is an underrated Opeth album?  Still Life.  I never see that one mentioned when people discuss the band and that one is my favorite by them.  

If I wanted to form my own list, I would start with some of the albums I named and try to work out a definition of "Metal Legends".  I suppose we are looking for bands that mainstream metalheads would know well, but I kind of feel like we are pushing that boundary with Opeth and Van Halen is not even a metal band.  So I guess some of the following would be included:

In Flames: Reroute to Remain

Cradle of Filth: Nymphetamine

Trivium: The Crusade

Ozzy Osbourne: The Ultimate Sin

Soilwork: Figure Number Five

Children of Bodom: Hate Crew Deathroll

Meshuggah: Contradictions Collapse

Dissection: Reinkaos

Iron Maiden: Fear of the Dark

Sepultura: Chaos A.D.

Most of those albums were not well-received upon release, or featured controversial style or membership changes.  Yet, they are often memorable and feature some great songs.  That's how you get an underrated album.