Pick Akphaezya's Anthology II.

I think the offer of multiple albums would be a good idea though if there is still a low turnout of reviews, it will be spread too thin with little if any challenge. I would prefer to keep doing lesser known albums that more known albums though whatever is chosen I will submit something for just for the hell of it. Unless it is some really awful brutal goregrind monstrosity.

Otherwise,

Congrats on the win H_U! I knew my lack of musical description would kick me in the ass. I just didn't have a whole lot of things to talk about on the musical side of the thing. I think H_U had the most focused and in depth review of the release. His win is totally justified.

Mhm. Congrats on the win, H_U! I had to rely on some lame-ass humor to keep me in the game as well as just relying on my ear and explain how I felt in the moment since my knowledge in traditional heavy metal is extremely limited.

Yeah, you deserved it.

Thanks everyone, I think I had a bit of an unfair advantage as I've basically been a Dio fanatic for 14 years and I've known of this song for almost as long. How intimate one is with the song/album in a review like this tends to make all the difference, but I have a feeling if we go in a different genre direction entirely on the next challenge it will prove to be far more interesting.

I'm not terribly familiar with Nadja or anything that would fall in the Avant-garde, so I'm all for doing something in either of those categories, or something else that is outside of the Power/Thrash/Traditional side of the coin.

Is a new challenge going to arise? I want something to participate and lose in to make me feel special.

I need something to re-motivate me in terms of review-writing. Haven't been active in a while and I've gotten rusty, I'm afraid.

We're looking at a time in late January, perhaps.

How about some Tirant Sin next time? Or the Morbid demo after Dead left?

How about Abysmal's The Pillorian Age? Now there's a band more people should know of.

The mods are deliberating on the subject of the upcoming challenge. Don't bother pitching suggestions around, we want to maintain as level a playing field as possible, without giving anyone too much of a head start.

The mods sucked with their last pick and should listen to the non-gay members of this forum (which is pretty much only me). Though Abysmal is a pretty good suggestion, too.

That's your opinion, but I have to say it wasn't my first choice either (it's all Napero's fault!). Next time we'll take a little more time to think of something better, and maybe spread around the decision-making process a bit. Anyway, it was the first pick in an experiment. Plenty of time for improvement. Also, anything you suggest and/or condone is from now on guaranteed to not be the subject of the challenge.

Sorry, just thought I'd throw it out there.

Let's review Black Tribe to piss off drone.

Why would that piss off drone?

Anyway, we can't do them, Noktorn has already done the perfect review for all Black Tribe releases in existence. http://www.metal-archives.com/review.php?id=20770. one of my favourite reviews on the whole site right there.

Because drone is a narcissistic German Kraut Gerry bastard and we'd all give the promo 0%.

That reminds me, I need to delete my BT reviews and redo then, they suck. Actually, I think I already have deleted them. Ugh, I'm 16 and have the memory of a 70 year old.

Unless he writes riffs reminiscent of Robb Flynn post 1994 I doubt I'd give him a 0. I might actually look into his stuff just because I haven't heard it before.

Granted, it'll be a cold day in hell before I give him any of my stuff to review, the same basically would apply to zeingard and caspian given their attitude towards post-black metal Bathory, Ensiferum, and Folk Metal.

Even if I did stumble upon your material I'd be too busy hating 'Dance of December Souls' to care about it.

Oh, you are just the worst. DoDS is a masterpiece.

I'm grateful for your apathy. but unfortunately this little revelation all but cancels it out.

Don't worry, it's all black metal, like Wolves in the Throne Room or Leviathan. Do you have anything completed and myspaced?

I've heard a little bit of Leviathan, which I pretty well liked, although Burzum has grown on me a lot more. I'm going to pay a visit to the Black Tribe myspace page and get a sampling of it before I bug John for a full release download.

Off-Topic - Currently Frost Giant doesn't have any releases completed so there's nothing to review, we are in the process of recording an independent EP. So far we only have one song completed (Last Stand Of the Einherjar) and we have 3 other songs from a failed demo attempt that sound really shitty (about the same recording quality as the "Land Of Frost" demo, I mixed and mastered these all myself and I basically was learning by doing) and an all acoustic cover of Ensiferum's "Abandoned" which we fucked up on the levels so it's extremely quiet. Matt Frost writes all of the songs for this project, I just play some of the lead riffs, the solos, and the keyboards.

My other project Ominous Glory (Helloween/Dark Moor styled power metal meets Iron Maiden with a bit of Megadeth worship) doesn't have any full length songs recorded as of yet, only a midi version of one and a real recording of a 2 1/2 minute overture to what will eventually be a full length album. It's basically on hold until Matt and I get the Frost Giant EP finished. Anyway, here are the links.

http://www.myspace.com/frostgiantkills
http://www.myspace.com/ominousglory

edit: It seems that the myspace page is not currently holding any songs so maybe I'll have more luck at last fm.

Black tribe really don't sound too much like Leviathan, less black metal, a lot more electronic and industrial-y. In all fairness the music is terrible, but it's got a certain charm to it.

Eh, maybe the word hate is a bit strong. I certainly don't enjoy it. I plan on giving it around 50, maybe 60? It's taking an awful long time to type anything because it's an exceptionally underwhelming album and more often than not I say "Fuck that shit" and put dISEMBOWELMENT on instead.

I'm with Zeingard, it's pretty damn average, it's better than BMD, but still 65-70 tops.

What's with the new "dISEMBOWELMENT is the exemplar of tr00 and sacred metal" streak going on in the forum ?

It seems like whenever anyone wants to bash a band, they'd compare it to dISEMBOWELMENT.
I like the band, don't get me wrong, but this is just confusing me.
Besides, it's clear that Katatonia's "Dance of December Souls" is totally different than dISEMBOWELMENT. The former tries to do doom that conveys feelings of sadness, despair, sorrow etc, and even besides the vocals I fail to see how it is tagged as doom/death. On the other hand, the latter is simply heavy crushing music.
Oh, and if you're wondering zeingard, it's just that your comment seemed like : "Origin don't know shit about brutal/technical death metal, I'm going to put on some Morbid Angel"

Heh, well played.

As for the comparison to dISEMBOWELMENT, I suppose that's just what I use as a guideline for good death/doom metal. Although Coffins and Acid Witch do a pretty fucking awesome job of the genre too for recent bands.

I know 'Dance of December Souls' is more about sorrow, melancholy etc. but the album just irks me. I'm not going into detail here.

I hope it's not a rant about how it isn't actually doom/death, because I'm so tired of seeing bands being bashed because they don't (or no longer) play a style of music they're claimed to. It's a terrible reason to drag down the score and says nothing about the music itself.

Now, I know that you aren't listening to our suggestions about the next review challenge but I am going to suggest one anyway if the cycle comes around to reviewing another traditional metal album

Digger - Stronger Than Ever
http://www.metal-archives.com/release.php?id=4614

Has a lot of context, is a full album, has no reviews and was spawned by a band that most people are familiar with or can easily find music from online to do research.

Just to clear up on people not getting the obvious joke, Black Tribe sounds nothing like Leviathan or Wolves, two bands that Mr. Gill hates passionately.

Understood, I listened to Wolves In The Throne Room and then listened to Black Tribe's stuff on lastfm.com and they have very little in common. Gill's stuff definitely has an amount of influence from Burzum, but beyond that it's unlike anything I've ever heard before. At times some of his ambient stuff sounds quasi-psychedelic.

Everyone and their dog prefers Alpha Drone, and I'm sure that you would too.

So, will there be a new one, or what?

Yes! Let us have another one! Preferably after I've finished my BA thesis! I'm using exclamation marks gratuitously so that you can tell how much I really want another of these competitions!