The obvious question to ask with an instrumental album like this is: Will removing Del from the song somehow improve the experience? In this case, many of these songs take on a whole new personality when stripped back to instrumentals alone. Tracks like Love Story and Virus feel as though they're conveying a story even without lyrics to guide you through them. Without vocals, the bassline on Madness takes the lead and carries you through the song, making for a completely transformative ... read more

(Edit: I have soured on this album substantially. )
80 > 50.

First impression: This doesn't quite feel like it took 12+ years to make, but does not disappoint. This is still recognizably Wintersun after all these years... to the point of even sounding like ideas from their first couple albums are being reused at times. On Storm especially, it feels like I'm hearing the same lyrical beats from a dozen prior songs, rather than progressing in any way. The closer Silver Leaves however ... read more

One of the many things I hate about power metal is its predictability, and what impresses me about this album is its unpredictability. It's this creative edge that sets Wintersaga apart from other power/folk or symphonic metal records. The progressive influences are strong here, particularly on the title track, and on the following Drunken Dwarves. You may never know quite what's going to happen next in a song, but what you receive is always a satisfying surprise that feels like a ... read more

As other users have pointed out, this album's garnering more attention on this site than some of us had anticipated. My only wish is that if an Orange Goblin album were to get some recognition, that it would at least be a decent showcase of their talents, which this album is not.

This record is again bogged down by the mediocrity and generic writing that have plagued their last few releases, and nothing has truly improved. The closest thing to a good song here is Ascend the Negative, ... read more

The most I can typically hope for with a new Orange Goblin album is a single good song, and this time that is Swords of Fire. That is, at least, until the song peters out anticlimactically, as many do across the record. This is actually their shortest album to date, and not for a lack of tracks, but for a lack of runtime on the tracks; many feeling uncharacteristically brief, limp, and underwritten.

The opener Sons of Salem is a generic, and outright corny, attempt at a hard rock anthem. The ... read more

If by "Abyss" we mean the creative progress seen on Healing Through Fire, then yes, Orange Goblin have certainly returned from this Abyss. Here we see the band retreading ground better left on their early 2000's projects, with hard-rockin' punk tunes like The Devil's Whip setting the stage early on. But while there is certainly an energy to the first leg of the album, the songwriting is lacking throughout, and many tracks (such as The Abyss) simply do not have the power ... read more

This is a deceptively good album. I've spent well over a decade now forgetting that it exists, and occasionally rediscovering the lead single Red Tide Rising. Revisiting the record in full, I've come to realize that there's actually some depth to tracks like The Fog, Death of Aquarius, and Acid Trial especially. I imagine that a few of these songs will continue to grow on me, though the weakness of tracks like Save Me From Myself, Return to Mars, or The Filthy and the Few, will ... read more

Kanye's first album is a mixed bag. He's a great producer and most of the beats here are excellent. His laid back flow and sense of humor shine throughout much of the track list. Unfortunately, there are some pretty awful crunk rap party songs here as well, like Get Em High and Breathe In Breathe Out. Slow Jamz is effectively a joke song, but isn't nearly as funny in concept as something like New Workout Plan. The gimmicks when done right make for a very charming experience on ... read more

Orange Goblin reinvent their sound yet again, and this time offer up their greatest album since their debut. The spine of the CD denotes it as "Apocalyptic Doom Metal" and there is no better descriptor for tracks like Cities of Frost or Hot Knives and Open Sores. The sludge influences are clear throughout the album, as well as groove metal in the vein of White Zombie's Le Sexorcisto (the only groove metal that matters). The album closes with an 8-minute blues-metal jam session ... read more

If you really want to hear what Enter Sandman would sound like if it were circus music, this is the album for you.

Metallica again team up with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra to perform some of their classic songs, and also a few non-classic songs. Just like before, many of the performances sound like two conflicting tracks being played at once, rather than a cohesively-composed experience. There are fewer songs here that I would willingly revisit when compared with the first S&M ... read more

The sound of the this album is fantastic. I've marveled at it for over a decade, wondering what exactly they did here. Is there an echo on the drums? An echo on the cymbal specifically? The answer still eludes me. Along these lines, Round Up The Horses is a song that takes heaviness to a new level, sounding like a thunderous stampede leading into the verses. One Room, One Axe, One Outcome is just as badass as the title suggests, a ferocious onslaught of violence that really embodies the ... read more

The album cover denotes this project as a "terrifying rock experience", just in case we needed any confirmation that the band were setting aside their heavy metal sensibilities in favor of high school dropout wannabe fratboy buttrock and punk. They're certainly not hiding the ball on this, as you can see just by looking at the tracklist. We've made a hard shift away from adventurous fantasy epics inspired by Tolkien, to blandly edgy lyrics about day drinking and beating up ... read more

Compared with Orange Goblin's previous works, there is noticeable shift here toward a more bland and forgettable rock-oriented sound, heard on 298 KG, Alcofuel, Turbo Effalunt, and the very grunge-adjacent Cozmo Bozo. The opener Scorpionica is serviceable Sabbathian doom metal fare, while the closing title track leaves much to be desired. The Big Black leans is on its heaviness because that's all it really has, and fades out before developing anything of note, sort of like the whole ... read more

LOL youre not michael jackson
0/10

This album sounds like a secret recording of children playing with toy instruments on Christmas Morning, and it's very uncomfortable. I use the term "torture" a lot when talking about AJR, but I really mean it this time. This album makes me want to take back any kind thing I've said about their music. They very clearly spent more money on the photography for the album art than any sound mixing.

The "best" "songs" here ... read more

I was very pleasantly surprised revisiting this album for the first time in years, to discover it's not nearly as bad as I remember it being. There's a substantial drop in quality from their debut album this one, but that doesn't preclude the record from featuring some of the band's greatest songs, being Snail Hook and Shine.

The opener Blue Snow may simply be here to deter any prospective listener, like a Cerberus at the gates of Hades. The song is impressively boring, ... read more

This is a live show played by Metallica, backed by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, and it sounds like a mess. The compositions and performers simply do not compliment one another, and often sound like they're playing two competing songs at once.

I was initially appalled when I saw how much 90's trash there is in the setlist, but after listening, I find I'm much more content when they're not ruining songs that I actually care about. In fact, the the simpler songwriting ... read more

Death Magnetic Again Again is Metallica's 11th album, and sounds almost exactly like you'd expect it to. I desperately wish that the band would try to do something different or unique, rather than attempting again to recapture the sound of Death Magnetic, which was itself an attempt to recapture an earlier sound. The songwriting is generally bland, and the lyrics range from forgettable to outright laughable.

This is the funniest Metallica album, spearheaded by their funniest song, ... read more

Hardwired.........To Self Destruct is so creatively bankrupt that it's actually insulting. Despite the band taking the longest gap between albums in their history, they have nothing to show for it. Metallica's songwriting skills have reached a new low, as seen in the method by which the verses are written: Take a single idea for a single line, and repeat it 8-12 times. And just like that, you have the following songs.

Now That We're Dead:

When ___ ___, may it be
When ___ ___, ... read more

Dead Roots Stirring trades the standard darkness and gloom of the doom metal genre for upbeat, energetic, sprawling, adventurous songs that never stagnate, are consistently progressing, and seemingly refuse to end. Every new riff is somehow even better than the last, and each song is consistently impressive with every new listen. This is simply some of the greatest music ever composed, unrivaled by anyone else in the genre, and unparalleled by Elder themselves.

I don't know if I've completely lost my mind, but this is by FAR the best AJR album. It is severely over-hated. I will gladly take Radio Disney pop tunes over fuckboy party anthems, especially the Disney Channel Halloween Special that is the track Pitchfork Kids.

The songs here are largely inoffensive, unlike AJR's later works. Or maybe it's just a better listen because it's impossible to take seriously much of the time. Woody Allen for example is a song that's ... read more