Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 7: Opeth: Damnation

I really like Opeth. I know there are a lot of metalheads out there that believe the band is boring as hell, but I'm not one of them. Opeth was one of the first extreme metal bands I really got into. I remember buying my first Opeth album on Halloween night back in 2001 along with the Tristania album World of Glass. It was an amazing listen. It was heavy, yet melodic. The band took breaks from rumbling death metal parts to play beautiful acoustic passages. It gave the band dynamics I had not heard much in the genre up to that point. I like the band so much that they were the first real metal band I took my fiancee to see with me. I had taken her to Trans-Siberian Orchestra the fall before, but that doesn't quite count for obvious reasons.

In the time since I first started listening to Opeth, I have picked up almost all of their albums. The only ones I have not picked up to this point are Morningrise and their most recent album. That's not to say I won't pick them up in the future. It's entirely possible, though I have not been thrilled with some of their latest albums. Most Opeth albums are pretty decent though and the band always had that different dynamic. They could be really soft or really hard and they would alternate those sounds.

With one exception.

Damnation is an experimental album for the band. Opeth decided that it was not going to play with the alternating styles on one album. They cut out the heavy parts and kept all of the progressive, soft parts. Now these parts are okay in the context of the heavy metal the band normally plays, but when they are on their own, the general feel is lost. I'm not saying I would be interested in an Opeth album with all of the soft parts removed though. Opeth's appeal is their ability to play both styles and meld them effortlessly. When one style is taken away, it feels as though something huge is missing. This album does not feel complete, even though each song is clearly complete on its own. Some of the songs are very beautiful. The soft songs throughout the entire album just do not hold interest well enough to make the album worth it.

Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 6: In Flames: A Sense of Purpose

For shame, In Flames. I am not talking about the typical albums that compel vitriol in most metal fans here, although this album is no less-derided. In Flames was one of the leading bands in the Gothenburg scene, and the first such band to really jump the shark. Their style of melodic death metal was infused with folk elements on their early material which were quickly filtered out. Nevertheless, the band remained strong through Clayman. After that is where a lot of fans bailed out on the band.

The music on Reroute to Remain was different, I will grant that. It certainly paled in comparison to their mightier melodeath material. But it was catchy, and emotional, and fun to listen to. Reroute to Remain was my first In Flames album, and perhaps that is why I feel the way I do about it. Perhaps if The Lunar Strain or Colony was my first, I would hate Reroute to Remain. Nevertheless, I loved the album then and still do now.

After that album came Soundtrack to Your Escape and Come Clarity. Both albums retaining that infectiousness from Reroute while being less than well-appreciated in metal circles. I still enjoyed them.

Then we come upon A Sense of Purpose which is where I will be getting off of the In Flames bandwagon. I do not honestly know what I dislike so much about this album. It seems like most of the elements from the previous three albums, which I enjoyed, are still here. Perhaps the songwriting has become stale, perhaps the modern rock elements have started to dominate the sound further decreasing the metal elements. I do not really know. All I know is that something happened on this album, something that has lead me to not enjoy it as much as their previous albums. Perhaps In Flames will catch themselves before they fall too far, perhaps not. It has been a fun ride while it lasted, but it's time for me to get off.

Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 5: Celtic Frost: Into the Pandemonium

I haven't been posting much lately, work has pretty much sucked all of my brainpower. However, I heard this album again this afternoon, and I must speak out.

Celtic Frost is hugely influential in extreme metal. The Swiss metal masters came around in the early 1980's and helped to influence the thrash, death, and black metal scenes. This was through their years as Hellhammer and through their first full-length album To Mega Therion. The band though has a couple of clunkers. However, I have never heard the glam metal Cold Lake. This album though, I have heard. This was the beginning of the band's avant-garde style, and it is fucking weird.

The album starts off strange, with the cover of Wall of Voodoo's "Mexican Radio". It's not a bad song, but the original is horrendous which makes me wonder what the hell the band was thinking when deciding to cover it. The next track is "Mesmerized" which is a pretty good song, but kind of bizarre vocally. Tom Warrior's vocals are typically delivered in a husky grunt, but this song showed Warrior's cleaner vocal style. The sound is more of a wail and it is certainly interesting, but this is just the beginning.

The next track is standard Celtic Frost proto-death, but then we get to "Tristesses de la Lune" which features a female opera singer, singing in French over heavy usage of keyboards. What the fuck? Afterwards things become a little more normal, until we get to "One in Their Pride", which sounds more like a hip hop instrumental, than a Celtic Frost song. Much of the rest of the album is closer to typical Celtic Frost.

Yes, there are some typical Celtic Frost songs on here, but there is an awful lot of filler and it makes this an incredibly uneven listening experience. The good songs are great, but the filler songs are awful and are painful to listen to. After the masterful To Mega Therion, this cannot be seen as anything but a massive step backwards.

Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 4: Megadeth: Risk

Ah yes, Risk. This is the album that made me start doing this series in the first place. I fucking HATE this album, and I say this as a huge fan of Megadeth. There are a couple of halfway listenable songs on this album, but by and large it is complete and utter shit. Dave Mustaine has had an ongoing grudge against Metallica since they kicked him out of the band in New York in the early 1980's and made him take the bus back to California. Since then, Mustaine and his band Megadeth has battled constantly against their more famous rivals, although Mustaine was actually the more talented guitarist and lyricist. You can actually hear the seething rage in his vocals and you know he is still angry. Metallica would have been an absolutely unstoppable force in metal if Mustaine stayed in the band, but his alcoholism was threatening to consume him.

Megadeth produced several classic thrash metal albums Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?, So Far, So Good, So What?, and one of the all time greatest METAL albums, much less thrash metal, Rust in Peace. But, Megadeth always had an inferiority complex about Metallica, so when they simplified their sound and garnered major mainstream attention and huge record sales, Megadeth did the same, with the stated purpose of outdoing Metallica. Unfortunately, while Megadeth could do thrash better than Metallica, they couldn't do mainstream metal. Countdown to Extinction, while being a decent album, paled in comparison to The Black Album. When Metallica came out with Load, Megadeth tried to further soften their sound to keep up with the record sales of their big brother.

Which leads us to Risk. Mustaine's vocals gained a horrible whiny sound when the music was softened. They had always been a little nasally, but it got much worse here. Marty Friedman was still in the band, but his shredding guitar solos were gone. The lyrics were pathetic, best exemplified by the ridiculous wrestling anthem "Crush 'Em". It's not a bad song to get blood pumping, but serves little to no purpose other than that. The rest of the songs were incredibly weak with very few standouts. Funnily enough, even the band realized how bad this album is and almost never plays any of the songs in concert.

After Risk, Megadeth almost returned to form. They haven't fully recovered yet though. Like Metallica, I don't think they ever will.

Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 3: Black Sabbath: Forbidden

I love Black Sabbath. One of my all time favorite bands, and of course, the very first metal band. However, the band went through a LOT of changes over the years. The original version is my favorite with Ozzy Osbourne, Tony Iommi, Geezer Butler, and Bill Ward. A lot of casual metal/hard rock fans don't really realize that Ozzy is not the driving force and main member of Black Sabbath. In fact, Tony Iommi was one of the principal songwriters and came up with the riffs which later became Sabbath's well-known sound. Iommi also seems to own the rights to the name Black Sabbath which is why he is the only member who has been with the band throughout its history.

Sabbath moved on after Ozzy was kicked out and brought in Ronnie James Dio. The sound changed obviously as Ozzy and Dio are much different singers but they were still releasing some good music. The band did decline quite a bit after Dio left and they went through a couple different vocalists including Ian Gillan (Deep Purple), Glenn Hughes (also Deep Purple oddly), and a whole host of individuals for tours. Tony Martin brought a little stability and sounded a little like a deeper-voiced version of Dio. He did a decent job, but the band should have stopped releasing albums as Black Sabbath by this time.

Forbidden is the last full-length, original album by Black Sabbath so far. It was released in 1995 and was the only album not to feature Geezer Butler on bass. With only one original member, this band proved to be fairly lackluster in the songwriting department as Geezer was another very important piece to the puzzle. Another problem was the rushed nature of the music, there is some decent potential, but the ideas were not fully formed. Finally, the appearance of Ice-T rapping over the first song is a little off-putting on a Black Sabbath album. For being a poor excuse for a Black Sabbath album, only having one original member, and including a rapper (albeit one who does have an admittedly strong interest in metal), this album is a terrible release from a great band.

Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 2: Metallica: Load

I remember distinctly the anticipation. I was 15 years old, just out of junior high. Metallica had been my favorite band since the seventh grade. I picked up all of their albums quickly, at that point there were only five. I considered myself a big heavy metal fan already, even though I only listened to about ten to fifteen groups regularly. Metallica was the favorite though.

It had been six long years since Metallica's last full length album, colloquially known as "The Black Album." That album lifted Metallica into another stratosphere, previously only known to such metal luminaries as Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, and Iron Maiden. Metallica was one of the biggest bands in the world, not just in metal, but all of rock music. They had toured with Ozzy Osbourne and Guns 'N Roses. They were huge. Obviously this album was one of the most highly anticipated releases in years.

There was one song on the radio prior to the album being released. A kind of strange sounding song called "Until It Sleeps." It was different, not nearly as aggressive as their prior material. Their prior album had simplified and slowed things noticeably, but this was completely different. I liked the song, so much that I picked up the CD single while I was still waiting for the album to be released.

The day finally came and I went to pick it up as soon as I could get my hands on it. I was shocked when I heard it. Gone was much of the aggression. The band had lightened their sound considerably even since the last album. In its stead, Metallica had become a blues-driven hard rock/sometime heavy metal band. There were some decent songs, but nothing like what came before. The worst song of the bunch "Mama Said" sounded like it should be played in a seedy, smoky country bar room after a rodeo. The album was long, nearly 79 minutes, and only a few standout songs. I was crushed, Metallica had let me down.

After six years I was expecting an amazing album, Metallica did not deliver that album. Now, 13 years later, Metallica still has yet to deliver an album building upon "The Black Album". Reload was more of the same, released shortly after Load. St. Anger is a stripped down, emotional roller coaster of an album, but is too bulky, its good ideas not fully fleshed out, and horrible production and lack of guitar solos make it a difficult listen. Death Magnetic is the closest Metallica has come to reclaiming their legacy. Metallica did a few things right during this downtime, Garage Inc. is a pretty decent cover album featuring two discs, one with all new cover songs, and the other with all of their previous cover songs recorded for singles. Disc Two is the best, but the Mercyful Fate cover on Disc One showed Metallica could still kill it. S&M, the live album featuring the San Francisco Philharmonic was interesting, with some quality moments. Finally, live Metallica was still great.

Load is the album that halted Metallica's forward momentum like a brick wall, even though "The Black Album" was a major decrease in quality. Metallica has yet to recover, though some positive steps have been taken.

Great Band, Terrible Album Pt. 1: Tiamat: A Deeper Kind of Slumber

Tiamat was actually never a great band, although early in their career, they put out a couple of great albums. The Astral Sleep is a masterful atmospheric death metal album, very emotional and powerful. Soon thereafter though, Tiamat began incorporating gothic rock influences into their sound. Soon these influences began to become the sound. By the time A Deeper Kind of Slumber was released, all the death metal elements had been drained. This album marked the end of the atmospheric death metal sound of the previous albums. The harsh vocals were gone, the powerful riffs, even the pounding drums had all been replaced. Slumber indeed. I have attempted to listen to this album on several occasions and each time, I end up falling asleep. There are almost no dynamics, no energy at all. Unfortunately, Tiamat has never totally recovered as this is basically their current sound. They have attempted to re-add some metal influences, but the deep atmospheric death metal of The Astral Sleep is gone forever.