Mordy's Metal Listening Club - New Albums Every Monday

Love Guyana!

Manowar definitely lost something when Ross left. The riffs by the other guy are good, but always so darn stiff. Ross knew groove.

Oh, and Eric Adams and Ross the Boss are two of the nicest guys you will ever meet.

lol probably don't even need to say this but that was dict. definition of "not my thing"

time to track down gridlink

oh god is this a ballad?

this is horrific

i fucking despise power ballads

death to false metal

i've lost the will to live

gridlink might just give it back to you

i like this but it's hard to know what to "do" with an 11-minute lp. yes i am a grind noob.

I hate grind but I think i could handle 11 mins of that more than another 11 of Manowar. But not tonight.

Three songs into the Manowar so far and liking this a whole hell of a lot better than the only other album I've heard from them, Warriors of the World. Phil was right, this is much more enjoyable if you ignore the lyrics and focus on the musicianship. Absolutely love the solo on "Thor (The Powerhead)".

Okay, this first part of "Mountains" is really hard to take, bring back the riffs please! And quick!

Phew, there they are.

Haha, that first bit of "Thunderpick" was way unexpected!

Okay, the Manowar really isn't up my alley, but now I can at least understand why people still talk about them and that they aren't a complete joke. They actually had some talent and great riffs once upon a time. "Thor" and "Guyana" probably my favorite songs of the bunch.

Listened to them all once, and a few extra spins of tracks from Amon Amarth & Manowar to revel in the riffage.

I don't care much for grindcore, and GridLink didn't change that. Did like the one-second tease of just drums at the beginning of "Burning Tiamat".

Amon Amarth I liked more than I expected, mainly for the undeniable riffs and overall guitar sound. It felt a little back-loaded for me, but I like the slower tracks like "Across The Rainbow Bridge" and "...And Soon the World Will Cease to Be" more than their burners. If someone more familiar with their catalog wants to point me toward an album even more along those lines I'd greatly appreciate it.

The Manowar was a pleasant trip down memory lane. My best friend growing up had this and Fighting The World, both of which we played to death. "Mountains" is just horrible, but I can't get enough of "Thor (The Powerhead)" and "Thunder Pick". The title track is a wonderfully ham-fisted and amped-up take on Judas Priest - in other words, right up my alley. This and the Entombed are my favorites thus far in the listening club.

I dig the Gridlink, though it's almost too intense. If we get round to grind again I'd suggest something like Nasum; a bit more accessible (if grind can be accessible).

I've enjoyed the times I've caught grindcore bands live, but the few records I've listened to just don't do anything for me. I like the noise & skronk stuff related to grind more than the true metal end of the spectrum.

I appreciate the Gridlink in a very abstract way (wow, that's fast), and I don't have a problem with its brevity (at least, not compared to what I paid for it), but I definitely don't relate to it very deeply. I think it would be very interesting to hear it without the vocals or drums. The guitar parts are weird and, I think, inventive. The drums and shrieking, on the other hand, are monotonous no matter how fast, and I find it hard to listen through them to even be sure whether the rest has any substance.

The Manowar campiness is fine with me, too. I mean, I like Helloween and DragonForce, so whatever. I particularly like the wiry punk energy of "Animals" (reminds me a little of "City Baby Attacked by Rats"), and the buzz-slash bits and tempo-stalls of "Guyana", but most of these songs have at least something I enjoy. Pleasant to be reminded of a somewhat simpler metal era, at least in production terms, in which velocity and general extremism hadn't yet crowded out so much good bombast.

But Amon Amarth is the week's winner for me. I already knew of them, and had played a copule of their albums at least once, but they'd just never clicked for me, falling in between In Flame / Dark Traquillity, on the death side, and Enslaved or Tyr on the viking sides (depending on which kind of "viking" vibe you mean). But I've warmed to them quite a bit while listening to Versus the World and the bonus disc, and will be immediately giving With Oden on Our Side another chance, as well.

The pairing with Manowar feels nicely apt: Amon Amarth count as extreme metal, I guess, because of the growling, but compared to Gridlink this is almost pastoral. It's more heavy than extreme; they're focused on their own aesthetic, not trying to blast apart some implicit other one. I like the at-times almost ritual cyclicality of the guitar riffs, and the fact that they often stay slow when the drums speed up. Maybe I've been listening to too much strained weirdness lately (and/or more aware of it by contrast with all these Cathedral albums I've been remedially inhaling), but Amon Amarth feel almost soothingly understated to me.

PS: But obviously it goes without saying (but I'll say it for the benefit of stray ILXors coming across these archives long after the fact) that none of these are really metal...

Hey guys Join the http://www.last.fm/group/ILX+Rolling+Metal+Group

oops that was meant for the rolling metal thread but oh well youre all the same people join away

I'm listening to the Manowar and this is further proof I just don't enjoy obnoxious old metal. I will give the other thing w/ a spotify link a go and then I think I may start to try the playlist with all of the 09 metal poll stuff in it.

Ok I much prefer this Amon Amarth, not that I could figure out why, an Abou Diaby maybe? (Style seems at odd with what I like, but damn if he/they don't seem to do something enjoyable with strength and pace?) Entombed no longer the only thing I would listen to again, it has a companion in my METAL LISTENING CLUB playlist.

just listened to the manowar. it's a shame that "thor (the powerhead)" (my fave track on one listen) is followed by "mountains" (which was, BY FAR, my least fave)

Oh, I've got it. Amon Amarth is the Big Country of metal. Awesome.

well I listened to HIM

i guess it was good, because it's sort of weirdly comforting to know that one band has sort of managed to combine almost every single thing i've hated about "modern" rock in the last 10 years into one thing

Diversify your friends, consolidate your enemies! Matt, what are some other bands you think of as representatively "modern" in this way?

Yep, I'm now a firm Amon Amarth convert. Just hit the live version of "Death by Fire" on the bonus disc for Twilight of the Thunder God and am looking for something on my desk that it would be OK to smash. No doubt Thor would just take a big, swarthy hammer-swipe at the whole scene, but he probably never had a MacBook. Such are the computer-geek-vs-Viking-Metal contingencies.

is the drum sound less annoying on the other records?

Yeah, actually, the kick drums, in particular, are deeper on both With Oden on Our Side and Twilight of the Thunder God than on Versus the World, I think. Enough to sway you? Only you can say. But if that's your main objection, give one of the others at least a sample-check...

OK, I'll check em out

Spotify Playlist with all 3 weeks albums that are available on it.
Will add to it as we go on.

Mordy, you up for week 4?

hope someone picks St. Anger

Sure, I'll post some albums on Monday. I won't post St. Anger tho.

if anyone picks post 90s Metallica im sb'ing them!

oh man perhaps i'll take a week way later on in the year -- St. Anger for all

sb

who is up after mordy?

we should post a list of who is doing it when.

You know, St. Anger is probably the post black album Metallica I listen to the most. I think there is something oddly enticing about it, like... did they really try to pull off this sound? It certainly makes for an interesting listen every 6 months or so.

I agree; I'd rather listen to St. Anger than either of the Loads, because it does have a perversely fascinating quality.

And a kickass drum sound.

Amon Amarth: I like this a lot, it's better than their Gothenburg-by-numbers earlier work and better than their later albums where the riffs, songs and whole concept are starting to get a bit stale. Versus The World has everything you'd want from a metal record, really. And that's maybe the only criticism against it - if it pleases everyone, how interesting is it really?

Manowar: I still have a soft spot for these guys, although I have the fondest memories of Battle Hymns. It is so much a period piece, this kind of music will make surely a comeback somewhere in the future, but the attitude of these bands will never return. I've always been really interested what people who didn't listen to metal in the 80s think - nostalgia is such a big part of why I enjoy this, I have no critical distance to this music.

Gridlink: well what can you say...it's short and it's grindcore. Never was a big fan, but I can't really dislike it either.

I'm up for picking three, just slot me in somewhere in the next weeks.

Unperson otm. Sign Of The Hammer is a weird album too... perhaps their muddiest album for best and worst.

1982's Battle Hymns and 1983's Into Glory Ride brings the best lols and the best riffs and hooks. 1984's Hail to England may be the only Manowar to recommend for Metal Is Serious Business types. Solid album and their best.

After Sign Of The Hammer and hence signing to a major, everything about Manowar is squandered and terrible... no hooks, overly bright 80s reverb, lack of distinction from 100s of other hair metal bands, I mean the excellent playing doesn't matter anymore at this point forward.. This is the best example of a band completely sucking by signing to a major label ever.

yet they still claimed death to false metal?

After Sign Of The Hammer and hence signing to a major, everything about Manowar is squandered and terrible... no hooks

I wouldn't go that far. Their Atlantic years yielded some insanely catchy tunes.

Fighting the World is a great album.

Metal Mordy's Monday Picks are go!