Rolling Metal Thread 2009

also, and I think this is a valid question, are you going off of what was actually written about each record's inclusion in the magazine, or are you just going by the list as a list? Because I think it would be at least worthwhile to read the justifications before going off blindly on an entry not being metal enough. I'm not blindly defending the list just because I'm a contributor, God knows there's a ton of stuff that I disagree with on there (Converge? Really?), but I do think it's at least unfair to instantly dismiss it without the full picture. If anything, I think that the decibel list speaks to two things: first, the sheer diversity of what could be considered to be metal in this past decade, and second (and probably less important from an academic standpoint but more important to understanding why the list is so seemingly random), the sheer variety of the tastes of the contributors to the magazine. Considering that the magazine is one of the few still afloat, and a lot of people from other late, lamented publications have wound up there, it's also kind of an interesting look at extreme music/metal journalism from this past decade as well.

I find that the likelihood of anybody's best-metal-of-anything lining up with my idea of Metal decreases rapidly once the size of the opining body rises above zero. Groups of 1 sometimes produce reasonable lists, but not so often once the 1 starts to include people other than me. Put more than a handful of people together and it's totally hopeless. That Decibel decade list has, out of 100 slots, only 10 bands I'd even consider, and at least half of them seem to me like the metal bands that people who don't really like metal like. Converge, Isis and Mastodon were collectively responsible for 10% of the 100 best metal albums of the whole decade? Of the 14 bands who have multiple albums on the list, I like only Enslaved.

But I'm sure it goes both ways, too, at least a little bit. HIM's Love Metal is likely to make my top 10 for the 2000s.

yeah, I think this is exactly what's wrong with that list. when a bunch of people vote, consensus picks take the top spots and the whole thing ends up blander.

heh, but even that doesn't excuse...

15. Pelican - The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw

Only one Southern Lord album(Warhorse). Did decibel fall out with sunn o)))?

sunn o))) stroke?

sunn o))) poisoning?

I wrote that Pelican blurb!

Also, "bland" is not a word I would use to describe that list, whether you like it or not.

The lack of Sunn love from dB is not surprising!

Oh, and apologies for the Iron Maiden blurb in the decade issue, the band is refusing all interviews right now, so we were stuck using an old one from 2000.

i have never seen a opy of decibel anywhere so how is the lack of southern lord stuff not surprising?

Well, some folks just plain don't like Sunn O))). People either love them or loathe them, as we all know.

aww i was hoping that the magazines editor was butthurt over the abuse it took from the old southern lord message board hehe

yeah they were a rough crowd over there

http://www.delawareonline.com/blogs/spaceballs2.jpg

too rough for greg anyway he kicked us off

Magazine lists always feel boring, predictable and least-common-denominator-ish.

Also i know this is a massive xpost but I still think that the whole experimentalism-over-purism argument is a giant strawman for lazy journalists. After all, nobody has problems understanding that rap in the 90s was shaped by Wu Tang and Jay-Z and not by 2 Unlimited's bold combination of house and rap.

i kinda wish hip-house had dominated the 90's instead of jay-z, to be honest.

more wu in your music is never a bad thing though.

we all need a little wu in us.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_uSOtp4gq6ls/SRcqBJy2SjI/AAAAAAAAAAg/um_BGljhds8/s320/All+the+Woo+in+the+World.jpg

...or whatever that groundbreaking record somewhere mid 90s was with rappers doing opera tunes. Anyway you get the point.

doesn't bother me not to see "avant" metal like SunnO)) on the decibel list. if they were on it i couldn't really get all pissy about pelican being on it. neither are very metal imo. wtf at no WiTTR tho.

many x-posts:

I wrote that Pelican blurb!

Also, "bland" is not a word I would use to describe that list, whether you like it or not.

hey, no offense intended! it was more of a lolsy aside than anything. I just think pelican are kinda boring and that position was waaaay too high for my liking. should have added a ";-)"

and the decibel list leans waaaay too heavily on hydrahead-friendly bands, imo. and I say this as someone with a high tolerance for that stuff. AND as someone who thinks the discordance axis album is possibly the best thing towards the top of the list!

but yeah, that plus the scarcity of records I'd never heard of is what I found "bland," though your mileage may vary.

also...

i kinda wish hip-house had dominated the 90's instead of jay-z, to be honest.

it did! but only if you managed never to step outside of a sports stadium.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHO6thJFLBQ

HE
COULD
GO
ALL
THE
WAY!

http://www.terrorizer.com/content/grand-magus-sign-roadrunner

^quite unexpected, no?

Part Two of my troll through Decibel's best-of-the-decade list is up, covering #s 80-61: http://bit.ly/7IW1iy

http://www.terrorizer.com/content/grand-magus-sign-roadrunner

ewww... what will roadrunner do with a metal band?!

Maybe someone there found some Mercyful Fate in the warehouse and got thinkin'

man, the intro to "the gnashing" (blue record) gives me serious neu!/michael rother vibes. and now that I think about it, the fuzz guitar that pops up from time-to-time definitely has shades of the classic rother sound too...

really love this record. deserves the praise its been getting.

yet some people think its not as good as Red, yet those who loved the ep's but were disappointed by Red love this one.

yeah, I'm in that boat. I never warmed to red completely but I think they've really come into their sound with this new one. really focused.

Too prog for me, unfortunately. I like the idea of Baroness, and their sound, just not their songs.

the father befouled/helcaraxe split on enucleation is fucking incredible. finding more information about it I was sad to learn that the drummer from father befouled had killed himself last month - it's weird to find a band, go digging for further information on them because they kind of rule, and learn that tragedy has only recently struck them. if you like good black metal anyway the split is top shelf; I just ordered most of helcaraxe's catalog because they're really good & interesting, a little throwback but not in an annoying way. or maybe I'm softening toward stuff that's a little throwback.

Alan, im in that boat with you too, tho i do love Red now.

reading Phil's Decibel list dissection - didn't realize Phil & I shared purist tendencies/sympathies! (although Siegbran's right: "purist" is an easy way of dismissing valid criticisms, and most "purists" don't hate experimentalism; speaking as a po-faced purist type, what I hate is boring stuff being touted as forward-looking because it has a fucking sitar or super-exciting analog synths!! or sounds like eighties shoegaze only louder or whatever "chocolate in my peanut butter" variant you wanna call "experimental")

...having said that, I think Hymns is a tremendous, tremendous record, outlying what I'd call metal but deserving of a place on the list. (I didn't submit a ballot, I kinda hate ballot-lists/polls as I've said 10000 times)

OTOH Phil Phantom Limb rules over Terrifyer any day & is more metal besides

i like all kinds of things. i like things that adhere strictly to a formula/genre constrictions and stuff that doesn't. if my orphaned land review was unfair to strawmen its only because i am often unfair and often feel the need to blame someone for something that doesn't actually exist. i'm pathological like that.

Ugh, what is Hatebreed doing on the Decibel list?

And am I the only person who thinks Meshuggah's Nothing blows Catch 33 out of the water?

is it wrong to laugh when you see this?
http://i48.tinypic.com/2ni7i8n.jpg

oh man
http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/85/l_51e2f0bf1cc25db9b774305a7f16b6cc.jpg
http://b5.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/00636/55/17/636927155_l.jpg

It would be cool to hear some words from ILM legend 'animal' on a day such as this, imo

the inscription and design on that grave is kinda touching, really.

god, now I'm remembering the pantera behind the music. the part where a friend of dimebag's that was onstage during the shooting recalls yelling, "stop killing my friends" is the saddest thing.

tho I did chuckle a bit at the wtc/weed pic

I posted the Photoshop thing on MSN... http://bit.ly/7eCys2

I really do like Reinventing the Steel as an album best out of their whole catalog. Each disc before that had a bunch of solid songs, but that one really works for me as a cohesive unit.

Where did you see the pic first, Phil? I found that one on VLV. Wouldn't be surprised if it was 1st done there as there is a habit of that kinda thing on that forum. No doubt it's been posted on every metal/music board by now.

I grabbed it here, just now.

oh hahaha. I thought you had posted it earlier today.

Objectively I should thing that Dimebag/WTC picture is horribly offensive, but I gotta say its pretty cool. As is the man's grave: outstanding.

RIP to a guy who i truly think was fucking great.

substitute "think" for "thing"

I've browsed through the thread, but any recommendations this year for a metal dilettante who likes stuff like Gojira's The Way Of All Flesh (technical/progressive death metal, I guess)? I see the Mothra and Ulcerate being compared to Gojira. Any others?

If you like Gojira, you'll really enjoy France's Hacride. Their last two albums are superb.