Christian Alvestam was the only thing worth listening to in Scar Symmetry. Now that he's gone they've turned to complete crap.


I wouldn't go so far as to say it'd be boring, but I do think the style they played on that album needed Patrick Walker to really be effective.

Ok, I understand.
And what about Thorns?

I really think without Joey Belladonna Anthrax wouldnt of been the band it is, Joey Belladonnas vocals are in my opinion the best in thrash metal and without his influence Anthrax wouldnt of made classic albums such as Persistence of Time or classics like Among the Living and Spreading the Disease wouldnt of sounded right with John Bush or Neil Turbin. As soon as John Bush joined the band, they turned to shit, its even more obvious of there re-recording with John Bush just absolutely turning classic songs into pieces of shit!

a friend of mine had a demo of Thorns and I think also (later) the Emperor/Thorns split but for whatever reason Thorns it never made it's way onto a tape of mine and years/decades later (now ) they/he had long fallen off my radar. My personal fave back then were early Ensöaved, Emperor, Satyricon (first two albums), DarkThrone, Ulver, Dødheimsgard (Kronet...), Ulver, the first Borknagar, In Thw Woods..., early Ancient (Det glemte riket), Kvist and (yes, I'm not ashamed to admit, aha) Dimmu's first album.

Well, for me personally, it probably would be boring. I'm not much of a doom fan other than a select few bands here and there. It has to be something that is different and really stands out for me to enjoy them, and Walker's vocals definitely do that for me. Without them I probably wouldn't like the album much at all.

Phlegeton has got some amazingly crazy exhaled pig squeels. Anything he's touched relating to Human Mincer or Wormed is some of the most brutal (and entertaining) vocal work I've ever heard. I feel like he took what Lord Worm did for death metal vocals and cranked it up to a metaphorical 11. I have a hard time picturing these vocals coming out of somebody's mouth, yet Phlegeton seems to delivery them equally as well when playing live.

type o negative anyone?

i'd say the rage nucléaire album as a whole was pretty mediocre and worm's vocals were by far the best thing about it

anaal nathrakh was already mentioned and i definitely agree with that, and will throw !t.o.o.h.! in the same category of "over the top vocals that are hugely important to the whole"

as for cleaner stuff - i doubt i'd listen to much of the gathering if it wasn't for anneke's vocals... same for a lot of devin townsend's material

then there are mokoma and stam1na, which not only have great vocals, but as they have finnish lyrics, it's also quite important for them to have great lyrics (for any finn to like them that is), since it can be a pretty hard language to write good lyrics in (usually you end up with something really corny)


also, while i'm usually not a grammar nazi...

wouldn't have
(i do agree about belladonna/anthrax)