First off, I don't think the "band"(?) Tougher than Nails is listed on the Archives. They sound, to me, more like a cross between Merzbow industrial/experimental noise and death metal, but lean more towards the former (Though I suspect that may not have been intentional and they intended to be the latter.)

To me, the criteria for "Worst Album" is a combination of both terrible musicianship, terrible production, AND terrible songwriting, just bad at all levels. Is "Lulu" or "Illiud..." a truely bad? Yes, but only in one or two out of these three categories. I really dislike Meshuggah, but they do have some undeniable talent, though I would say they squandered it on bad songwriting. But they don't fit either. Zarach...is bad on most levels, but even he has managed to turn out a decent raw black metal tune once in a while.

For me, what is truely the worst of the worst, on all levels, something that checks all the boxes and which is indisputably BAD... is Dungeon Wolf, "The White Elf."

I mean, I dont even know what to say about this. For one, you have to check them out at their bandcamp page since it appears that the Youtube video has been taken down. It's supposed to be some kind of traditional heavy metal, but it just fails- epically- on every level. They can't play, the songs are cringe, the production is just bad, the vocals are a joke, and I half wonder if the whole album was intended to be a joke.

There are a lot of really terrible slam-death metal and "Kid in his bedroom with a guitar" black metal bands out there, too many to mention in fact, and a lot of that nazi crap (for example, Tank Genocide) which is roughly the same quality as that stuff. But Dungeon Wolf looked like they were actually trying to be a somewhat serious band at one point.

I wasn't calling Spectre Within intentional Z-grade crap. I don't even think it's Z-grade crap (it's Æ-grade crap). Z-Grade crap is Psycho Sinner and things of that ilk.

Here’s some more albums I found to be absolutely dreadful: Magnus - Scarlet Slaughterer. Yikes, those vocals are laughable. Why he felt the need to do those weird high pitched vocals I’ll never understand. That was a hard one to finish. Crucifer - Pictures of Heaven. Don’t really remember much about this album, all I can really say about it. Nothing memorable. Dead World - The Machine. RYM has it at 3.51 and I don’t understand that rating at all. Tscabeze - Opus 1. Another I have no good memories of, just know I gave it a poor grade. Ексхуматор- Tepop. I’m not sure what this guy goes for. Black/Death/Thrash with really poor vocals and musicianship. Sometimes hinges on pure bad heavy metal. Ogre - Dark Filth. Grindcore with Middle Ages sound samples??? Alright some of it was rather funny to listen to but it’s really hard to follow. Mortification - Primitive Rhythm Machine. These guys had all the talent in the world and two solid albums to start and just pissed it down the drain hard. Really hard. Their falloff should be studied in history classes. Possession - Eternally Haunt. Another band who just threw shit at the wall to see if it would stick. Too bad they had diarrhea that day when they were recording this album.

Yeah big time; unironically worse than St Anger.

This sounds like a great way to waste a couple of hours, thanks!

I just listened to it right now, much more enjoyable, not only because of the vocals, everything sounds much more unhinged, you can also appreciate the quality of the members without having to sacrifice harshness in their sound.

This might be considered one of those garbage takes, but hear me out first....

Orchid - Mouths of Madness

Good musicians, good production, good vocals, good lyrics, good music...... Which I liked better when it was played by Black Sabbath. Almost the entire album is complete and utter Sabbath plagiarism that goes far beyond the average Sabbath copy stoner doom band. There is just hardly any original music here, despite all of the songs being credited to members of Orchid. This magnitude of plagiarism of the same band on the same album to me is worse than any incompetent musicians, singing, lyricists, songwriting, production, etc. Its easy to make great music when you just steal it from other great musicians.

I understand what you mean, but personally I don't have anything against copycat bands. They may not be very interesting to listen at home, but I'd like to see them live and hear the type od metal music where original band no loger exist or tour (Black Sabbath, or Death in case of Gruesome).

They are by miles better than damn tribute/cover bands which started to spread like plague here in Croatia. I hate that shit.

I am also not a big fan of clone bands, but I think that they are more of a symptom of the problem. What I mean by this is that expanding the genre in any direction is clearly costing us a lot, so it is no surprise that a lot of bands prefer to copy the style of classic bands rather than creating a mediocre sound of any genre that metal has.

But yeah, if I were a musician I wouldn't play exactly the same style of music that my favorite band plays, at least I would try to add something more personal to the formula. I wouldn't say that clone bands are bad per se, but they are very uncreative, almost kind of like nonliteral tribute bands.

The drum production on that album is absolutely awful, even when compared against some of the lowest grade slam death album's I've heard from the late 2000s. It's poorly executed from start to finish. Have you ever considered that maybe it was trendy to hate that album because it actually sucked?

I have listened to really BAD slam, but Waking the Cadaver is not that bad, check the other bands that I put in the first page of the thread, they are a lot worse. WtC sounds really deathcorish, at least in their first album. It's really dumb music, I am not arguing about that, but slam is kind of like that, pig squeals, breakdowns, slam riffs, mid-tempos, and that hardcore pace that most of the songs have. I going to support funeralravens here, it's a bad album, but not near the worst.

Honestly, probably this https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Comrade_Borislav_88/Slavonic_Resistance/382591

As my fellow moderator Zodijackyl said so eloquently: 'Quite simply, this is the worst thing ever.' His review sums up why this really is the worst shit you could possibly find on these Archives, or properly down there at the very least; a combination of atrocious Nazi electronic music and even more atrocious NSBM. If this isn't in the bottom 0.5% I'll be shocked.

I know what comprises slam death dude, I've reviewed several albums in the style on this site. And I too have listened to really bad slam, I've even heard some really bad deathcore, and nothing I've heard tops WtC's debut. I'm not saying there isn't worse out there, nor that there isn't worse slam/deathcore out there. What I'm saying is that, at present, it is the worst album I've ever heard, which is the subject of this thread. I may or may not check out the stuff you've posted if I have the time to waste on something that I know will be terrible, which as of now I do not.

You think it's not that bad, I think it is, that's where we stand. End of story.

This has gotten a lot of discussion and I wanted to chime in. It seems this album is loved by many and hated by many. I can understand the arguments for both sides. When Veil Of Maya comes on and those vocals started, I immediately wanted to shut it off, but I pushed through it and found things I enjoyed despite that. It got an A- grade from me for the whole album. They have a lot of skill. They thought outside the box and came up with something original. I wouldn’t say they despised death metal, I’d say they were bored of the current state of it so they put in their own spin. I think it worked for them. Others will disagree and like I said I don’t have a problem with that opinion. It’s in a land of its own. By no means do it’s think it’s the greatest album ever. In my opinion Demilich and Pan.Thy.Monium beat them at the game of originality. Outclassed them badly. It’s a tough album to have an opinion on. It’s not great, it’s not terrible, it’s not good or bad, it’s not even mid. It’s…something. Something some enjoy and others despise.

Is slam the most hated sub-genre of all on the metal archives? I’ve seen a lot of comments about bad slam. Even saw a comment saying all slam bands are unskilled and lack talent. Voracious Contempt by Internal Bleeding is all I have to work off of so far and it was….ehhh nothing special but also not terrible. Guess I’ll find out as I continue on my quest.

While slam death, for the most part, ranges from musically unappealing to unlistenably terrible, I don't think it is the most hated.

That would be nazi/National Socialist black metal, and justifiably so. Granted there are SOME bands of that genre who can actually play, and create passable music (not that this changes anything), but most of them possess the musical talent of a retarded monkey.

Putting a band below ZBT, that’s some high praise. Or whatever the inverse of that is.
I checked The White Elf out, it’s… fascinating. It’s like everyone involved was way too drunk to fulfill any musical role coherently, but somehow functional enough to record an album and upload it to bandcamp in one go (I can’t explain to myself this taking more than a single seating because at some point a semblance of awareness would have slipped in).
So thank you for sharing it. I guess.

I don't think you guys are understanding what I mean... I didn't say the album was Sabbath copy, I said it was far beyond Sabbath copy. I don't mind bands that "steal" Sabbath's style, as a matter of fact I seek it out and enjoy much of it. Orchid's first album Capricorn is a very fine Sabbath clone album I enjoy. What makes Mouths of Madness different is that, again, it goes far beyond Sabbath copying (stealing their style) to outright plagiarism (stealing the actual songs or components to songs).

It is well known by now that Metallica stole the main For Whom the Bell Tolls riff from Angel Witch's Angel of Death, right? Imagine if Metallica made 10 songs doing the same thing with like 15 - 20 different Angel Witch riffs, and put it all on one album with a couple tracks with nothing stolen from Angel Witch. That's Mouths of Madness' relation to Sabbath. It's not Sabbath copy, it's not Sabbath clone, it is Sabbath plagiarism.

No? I can't find any obvious similarities between the two other than that triplet rhythm. Manilla Road's 'Dreams of Eschaton' has a riff that's really similar though. But I get your overall point about plagiarism.

https://www.metal-archives.com/albums/A ... ayo/980724

It's one of the reasons I kinda started frowning on Black Metal as a whole. I'm not sure if you call this "metal", whatsoever, and I can be VERY lenient when it comes to accepting bands as Metal but there goes some sort of limit. It's my first flat "0".

This whole "Pish pish pish... tuk tuk tuk.... Baaaaah!!" doesn't cut it for me. You have plenty of crappy pop songs have more integrity.

And many of these sorts of bands exist on this site like plenty of Drone/DSBN rubbish.

Decided to run through Dungeon Wolf and holy moly that was all a doozy. The first album is okay if slightly below average but then the second album and subsequent EPs go straight into hilariously bad territory. Compounded with their singer-guitarist apparently passing a couple years ago and now I feel compelled to learn everything about their backstory.

Every slam metal album.

I don't know but I am between Armor of Light by Riot, Orgasm of Death by Killr Fox and We Can't Win by Astrarot.