Kurt Ballou never fails to produce a song that makes you want to eat drywall.

The Blackening features more of the band's trash-metal roots (that's good), along with a lot of songs that push past the nine-minute mark (that's also good).

The Blackening is an album that shows you can have your cake AND eat it too, meaning you can have a really entertaining, groovy metal album that is still complex and filled with creative ideas. Even though it is quite long, I was engaged the whole way through.

A Farewell to Arms is the big highlight for me. One of the best ... read more

"Who we whackin' boss?"

Who the fuck are these guys, I thought I ordered goons?

In the space of groove metal, I like to view Machine Head as the chill coworker who's pretty consistently good at their job (bar a few fuck ups) with some standout career highlights. On the flip side, Pantera is the guy who used to be chill and great at his job but is now a useless freak, but the boss refuses to fire them for some reason.

Burn My Eyes is my favorite groove metal album of the 90's. Yes, Pantera is a much more influential band, but I've always preferred ... read more

Who wins:

Incomprehensible horrors beyond the human imagination that stink like buns?

-or-

Four indoctrinated goobers blasting Disposal Unit?

Listened to this when it initially came out, and I wanted to come back to it. It's still quite good, even if it has a few problems.

Love how unhinged this is. It's LOUD, and you really get that feeling throughout the entire runtime, and at just 36 minutes, it doesn't outstay its welcome.

The instrumentals are also really cool, and in my eyes, are the most consistent aspect of the album. From heavy to calm, angry to sad, they check all the boxes for me and is the real emotional ... read more

I've been recommended this album a lot over the last few years. Was now in the mood to check it out, and I'm glad I did.

Pretty cheesy, but I am a fan of cheese. I really loved a lot of things this album did, as it did a really good job of balancing that cheese with a meaty edge.

The growls are amazing and are some of the best I've heard in a while. I really appreciated how much they fit into every aspect of the instrumentation, from the brutal metal sections to the symphonic ... read more

Thanks to @Grunge_Man for the recommendation!

It's another 80's thrash album. I really don't have more to say beyond that fact.

Is it objectively good? Yes, but other bands have done better during this time and so have Kreator themselves.

I wanted a bit more, but I can't complain too much since it's a quick listen and the songs do kick quite a bit of ass.

Thanks to @Kacper for the recommendation! Sorry it took me a while to get to this one.

Reminded me a lot of the Silent Hill 2 soundtrack. It's a very eerie, but beautiful IDM album that takes the listener to a lot of different places with very few words.

Apparently, this is also a concept album? I haven't done any research yet, but I am very interested into finding the 'meaning' into what I heard, as this thing is fucking weird man.

It is quite long, but I was very ... read more

So I plan on redoing my Death discog dive later this year, as I want to update those reviews and do a full ranking, but I really wanted to do a rereview of Symbolic as I find the discussion around this album to be very interesting.

This is one of three metal albums on AOTY that has a user score that sits above a 90. Master of Puppets doesn't even have that high of a score, and that is arguably the most well known metal album of all time.

So that leaves me with an interesting question: ... read more

Flightless bird my ass. This mf fly as hell!

There is a part in Saving Face that has the exact same riff as Flying Whales by Gojira, and I was about to make fun of these guys for it, but this project came out 3 years beforehand and I'm kind of stunned by that and now I don't know what to think.

This song is older than most AOTY users.

Myself included.

Really goddamn good, especially the first half.

Love how dark, brooding and emotional this is. It's written and performed so well, you never realize that you're listening to songs that are 10+ minutes in length.

I find Dia Artio and Vastness and Sorrow to be near perfect songs for the genre. Genuinely must listen tracks if you are a black metal fan.

The last two songs are great as well, I just loved the first wo more.

... read more

This album a little bit of everything pretty well, with the best thing being the down tuned, hard-hitting riffs. There are a lot of moments where this thing hits HARD, and it is absolute ear candy when everything comes together.

I don't find it to be the most creative thing out there. They wear their influences HEAVY, and I do find it to be a bit more on the copying side than the tasteful side.

Still, a lot of it sounds really good. This is going to sound crazy, but this is what I hoped ... read more

I really don't want to leave a rating on this one, even if I did listen to it and liked some of it.

I've always been a casual enjoyer of JPEGMAFIA. I really love SCARING THE HOES and I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU, but my love for him starts and ends with the music.

I really don't know or care for him as a person all that much, but I do know he is a bit of an arrogant ass and did collab with Kanye to help produce VULTURES, and that does rub me the wrong way.

That vibe is very much ... read more

I like to imagine this is what the Beatles sounded like to the silent generation.

Absolute parody of a bdm album right here, and it is really funny for about 10 minutes. Then it keeps going for another 39, and it gets old real quick.

Anything good I could say about gets drowned out by how long and repetitive this is.

Please don't release 4 different, bad version of this song. Thank you.

I felt like a genius every time I recognized a sample.

Putting this in the, "cool for you guys, but not for me" category. I'm new to this genre, and even though I liked Dariacore quite a bit, an hour of a more extreme version of it is a bit too much for me.

It can really fun, but I just can't sit through it all the way in one sitting quite yet. There is a LOT going on and my initial listen left me overwhelmed in a bad way.

Again, I'm not really faulting the music ... read more

I can get that Dream Theater is not for everyone. James LaBrie isn't the best vocalist, the band devolves into a lot of wankery and they are pretty cheesy.

That said, yeah this is a 100 for me. I keep going back and forth on it, but I feel like I need to give it the score at the this point.

It's not perfect, but I wouldn't change a thing about it. Everything comes together so well and really creates this larger-than-life, theatrical (hehe) vibe you really don't see a lot ... read more