A generally pretty interesting shoegaze album with an amazing vibe and atmosphere. I love the metal-shaped curveballs the album throws you in songs like Alien VS and Discord, it is a fantastic change of pace compared to some of the more mellow songs.

I do think some of these songs are just not musically interesting enough, like Bradley Goes to Summer's End, which has a supremely uninteresting riff as its backbone, but thankfully the album doesn't sink to that low often at all.

Oh dear god the production is SO BAD

I know it's Bathory, the black metal albums all had shit production, but there's a difference between shit production and *shit* production. This actively hurt my ears, the drums are so metallic and loud whilst the guitars sound like normal thrash guitars. Also with this type of thrash mixing you can't do black metal vocals dude. The vocals on the Bathory debut work because it blends in with the guitars, but here it just sounds like shit. It ... read more

"Genre: Chillout, Ambient Techno, Ambient Pop" Yeah sounds about right. Pretty nice album to relax to, not much more than that

I don't think I've heard a person flow better before holy shit. the low-key production allows him to really shine. His singing is just unreal. How does he do it

The difference between this and your bog standard dreampop album might be a bit subtle at first, but this is just so much better in every way

I feel like despite this album's flaws (could probably do with a bit of tracklist trimming) I could listen to this in the background for the rest of my life. I'm not saying it's background music, it absolutely isn't, but the production is so perfect that it's like listening to melting butter. The synthesisers, guitar tones and ... read more

Very much annoys me how they had such a fantastic blueprint to work off in Obscura and ended up making such a poor facsimile of it.

Now, do note that "Poor facsimile of the best metal album ever" does not result in a bad album. I think this thing is actually pretty good. but it really sucks how much of a downgrade it is. Obscura revels in its atonality, whilst this thing is almost scared to use dissonance - whenever it does, it's firmly rooted in a key signature & it's ... read more

ts so tuff, wow holy epic reddit chungus. +1 score for each point of respect. Tel Aviv impressed

edit: babygirl is an incredible song, im just confused why he filled the rest of the album with inferior versions of it
it's so frustrating how almost great this album is

Somewhere in between symphonic black metal and blackgaze. Some of the songs here are really fantastic, like "Past The Southern Pole" with its intro, or the longer "Age Of Sky"

Jesus christ this is grim
First two tracks are actually alright. The entire rest of the album Drake sounds completely defeated, singing like a suicidal gooner over completely lifeless beats. I was constantly amazed at how much worse it was getting as it progressed.

A lot of the songs here are obviously joke songs, like Cheetah Print with its ridiculous interpolations. The problem is that with Drake sounding so depressed it doesn't read as that, so I get the impression he actually is just ... read more

There's this thing they do quite often where they land into a really nice groove and then abruptly speed up by a dumb amount. Even though they pull this gimmick off multiple times it literally never gets old it's always a "HOLY SHIT" moment.

I think the album is at its best when it's at its most unstable and difficult. It's not an easy listen, but if you love this sort of thing (as do I after loving Gorguts's Obscura) it's a really amazing experience. ... read more

Nice beats, not much more than that. Ulver are good at using synthesisers and are able to craft some nice beats. This isn't really high art or whatever, it's definitely background music, but I do return to it quite frequently when I just need some ear candy playing to get things done.

hell yeah

It's so alien and sparse. This comparison might make no sense, but it reminds me of old videogame soundtracks like Deus Ex where they use incredibly primitive soundfonts to create a sort of digital ambiance. It has a similar vibe, with how... empty but still polished this sounds.

Song with Hope Sandoval is a standout. Massive Attack X Mazzy Star collab is something that literally could not have ended up badly in any universe.

I do believe that "Leprosy" soon got outdone by the work of Morbid Angel and Deicide, but there's a certain melodic and catchy quality to Chuck Schuldiner's riffs that's at its strongest here with his non-progressive albums.

This might actually be the greatest technical metal album of all time

A lot of death metal prides itself on being complicated. I often find that the ways that this is done can be rather musically limited - like how Necrophagist cram arpeggios into their songs, or Cryptopsy's drum kit abuse, or Suffocation's ridiculous numbers of riffs, or Nile's dizzying speeds. I love these bands and wouldn't want it any different from them, but musically speaking it's essentially ... read more

I wish they really went the extra mile and came up with more riffs that didn't just consist of chugging within the same octave interval, when you're playing with old school production and mixing this bass-heavy it starts smooshing together. That's a shame because when you do really pay attention this is fucking awesome.

Cope: The Album

I think this band needs to put more effort in, they're clearly capable of a truly amazing death metal album. I love how disgusting their vocalist sounds, in parts they're able to show a real ferocity and drive, but they just don't make it all the way.

The riffs are good but use way too many root notes in a Six Feet Under type of way where you can tell at some point it's just laziness. It just doesn't sound as heavy or chunky as a slam metal or more proper technical ... read more

Music is more than its message. Burzum is very obviously the work of a Nazi - despite Varg claiming he kept his politics out of it, it's literally just so obvious with shit like the lyrics to Quintessence being about some Nordic Ubermensch, and the general cringe pagan LARPing and chuddery that underpins literally everything he did.

I'm not going too deep into my logic here but all I'm saying is be sensible. You shouldn't be forgiving towards Nazi music and ideology, but ... read more

There will never be an album like this again. At least, I hope there won't be. The band were sleep deprived, were paid as little as €200 per concert in these shitty post-Soviet Eastern Germany venues, they couldn't speak German, were robbed, were starving, had horrible malfunctioning audio equipment, Dead was actively self-harming and frying his voice. They were also barely 20 years old at the time.

This is the result of a great deal of suffering from the band. This is also ... read more