So there's albums that for some reason or other are loathed, maligned, scorned, washed down with dirt and yet you, the fan, feel differently. Let this be the thread to state your reasoning and try to win everyone over into well, if not liking the album, then at least going back to it out of curiosity. Be as specific as possible and point to certain tracks, moments etc.

I'll get the ball rolling with;

OVERKILL - I HEAR BLACK

I find Overkill to be one of the most exacting and consistent bands in all of metal even with the presence of this oft maligned album in their discography. The problem most seem to have with it is that it sounds watered down and groovy when cast against Horrorscope, The Years of Decay and others before it.

Did it drift out of the zone of what we'd come to expect from the Kill, yes! But it is hardly a low down dirty sell out. I think of it as a widening of the scope of what Overkill were capable of creating. When you listen to the older material you are awed by the band's seemingly inexhaustible palate of riffs and Blitzy's vocal idiosyncrasies. Horrorscope dialed down on the energy (just a tad, mind) and let out more riff cycles and I think what I Hear Black did and did well was to MELLOW OUT! People say "groove" and yes it is a key element of the album but not in the Pantera kind of way. It is not overly enforced. It is simply the padding upon which a wealth of ideas walk. You have to admit that songs such as Shades of Grey and Spiritual Void far cry as they may be from the frenzied days of 'Deny The Cross' are still admirable constructions. The former shows the Kill in a new light, very mellow and searchingly moody in a very mature way while the latter tips its hat to Sabbath (by way of CoC?) with some of the best groove riffs before the subgenre was populated with faceless cunts.

The faster (or semi fast) tracks is where the album tends to get a bit shaky but I'll give you Weight Of The World which won me over with the line "And are you beating my meat to the sound of the same old drum!?" and has a most convincing Blitz vocal attack. Or Feed My Head with its charming bass work and sludgy (and nicely groovy) riffing.

Start with those and work your way to the harder-to-like tracks like the title track with its misplaced intro (but it gets better as it grows) and "Ignorance & Innocence". I personally find no fault with this record and I only understand the qualms based on the fact that it is not strictly "Thrash". But was it awful music. NO!!!!!

Show me yours....

- Metallica 'Load' and Megadeth 'Cryptic writings': These are very pleasant, mellow 'rock' (let's leave it at that) albums that provide nice background music. The trick is to forget the name on the cover and take them as individual records in their own right.
- Iron Maiden 'The X Factor': Blaze fits these tracks perfectly, Bruce would have been completely wrong for the darker, more melancholic sound. Great sound, emotional and deep compositions that offer a much more interesting take on the Maiden sound than the couple that came before it.

I don't know if it's actually maligned as I don't think I've ever heard a single person speak about it, but Xysma's Girl on the Beach is a great rock album with pop tendencies. Last time i checked it seemed that someone had taken everything off youtube, but yeah, the record is full of nifty and original-sounding guitar hooks, smart rhythms and some really in your face basswork.

Seconded. In addition to this, I must say that The X Factor is one of my favorite Iron Maiden albums because it showed the band into a rare state of vulnerability and also set the stage for some of their future efforts. No Prayer and Fear Of The Dark saw the band try to ground themselves but The X Factor is where the band sounds just plain human. I'd also say similar things about 2wo's Voyeurs, the Loads, and a couple others from the time period.

To the OP, I recently reviewed I Hear Black and yeah, it isn't that bad. I really liked "Feed My Head" and "Weight of The World" is okay too. I would throw in "Killogy" as well but that is honestly a leftover from Horrorscope, so it really doesn't count. The production is shit for that kind of music, however, no matter how you look at it.

I'll have a go at this...

ENTOMBED- SAME DIFFERENCE

Similar to above about Load and Cryptic Writings, if taken as a rock album it can be quite enjoyable, with decent riffs and groove at times, but with more dust and grit in it's teeth than all the popular nu metal and other shit doing the rounds at the time. What the fuck do kids know, am I right?

P.S. Revisiting it now the best moments are definitely in the first half. But just check out the intro to this song....



do I win a prize?

Liturgy's Aesthetica

I'm in the middle of writing a review for this album, so this is something I wanted to kick around.

There's something about this album that is inexplicably attractive to me. I think it's the extremely organic nature of the songwriting. There's an effortless air of of "brightness" and a joyous and seemingly porous nature to the album. It's very light, and almost fluffy, surrounded in bright yellows, forest greens, whites and golds. I do think it's black metal - in the sense that it operates within the tenants of black metal - but it has these definitively non-black metal moments. The songs themselves are actually compositions - something that is lost on a lot of metal bands these days. They aren't just collections of riffs or sounds. They are complete musical ideas featuring motifs and beginnings and middles and ends. It's just the right amount of influence from outer sources. The repetition of the songs is really intricate and actually awesome in a Philip Glass-ian kind of way. It's minimalist and over the top at the same time. I dunno. I'm working on a more detailed review now...

Anywhere I can listen to it? Your description has me really interested but it doesn't seem to be on the interwebs based on my searching, which admittedly wasn't a whole lot.

Okay, if we get Entombed's Same Difference I may as well add that I have a soft spot for the second Six Feet Under album Warpath. I think it's rocking, grooving, passionate, catchy, makes you feel good and is generally a pleasant listening experience. For me it is the best album they recorded. The debut is cool too but a bit too simplistic and mechanical, and the albums after Warpath are almost completely lame. The album right after it, Maximum Violence has three good songs and the rest is crap, and from True Carnage onward I agree with everyone else that the band is garbage. Warpath however, very cool album.

A few of Priest's albums still rock my world despite the general consenious. "Turbo" comes to mind first, though the songs "Parental Guidance" and "Rock You All Around The World" can kiss my ass. But the moody buildup of "Turbo Lover", the dark sleaze of "Hot For Love", the pounding synths in "Out In The Cold", the catchy, rambunctious fun of "Reckless"...it just works for me. It's entertaining, harmless party metal!

How do you live up to an untouchable legacy when you're over two decades removed from when you marked the pinnacle of the style? Do you half-heartedly imitate what you did in your early 20s when you're in your 40s? Rehash it? Modernize it? Throw a curveball? The baseball analogy is apt - you don't just throw a curveball, you hit the batter. The batter is going to charge the mound, both dugouts will empty onto the field, and it's going to be chaos. They are masters of chaos, and they assembled an album with a lack of order.

The context is damning - to bask in the shadow of Altars of Madness would be futile, and this is what most death metal does. There are formidable monuments and imposing figures, but they could not eclipse the legacy of the creators. Could a mortal live up to the 2000 year hype of Jesus Christ? No way in hell. Morbid Angel aren't competing in the death metal league anymore. They had Wayne Gretzky's years with the Oilers with A-D, they had his years with the Kings/Blues/Rangers with F-H, the last of which was better than what most were doing but not up to their legacy in retrospect - a victory lap even if they weren't going that fast.. It's a different era. Now, playing death metal again would be like 50+ year old Wayne Gretzky lighting it up in the LNAH - same game, no glory, not nearly as good.

Morbid Angel were not making a death metal album. They set up their new friend for some sweet goals in the alumni games (the songs written by Thor), they had to get a new goalie (drummer) because their old one went to the KHL (same game, opposite side). This one's really athletic!

Morbid Angel are not playing your game. You're playing their game. You took ambien, inhaled a bunch of nitrous oxide, and you're floating through a low-resolution, pixelated Quake III level with Trey. You wanted him to harken back to the 90s? He did. His game, not yours. David Vincent is indulging himself with the most sickening, insane anthems of morbidity you could imagine... crazier than you could invision. You wanted him to hammer out anthems of chaos, didn't you? His game, not yours. You don't like it? Too bad, you're playing their game and they've turned the table.

So, sell me your maligned album, I'm buying an Illud Divinum Insanus box set and my price is not living up to your expectations.

I can actually see what you mean Zodi, but fact is, I still can't ever listen to that album without wanting to turn it off, so I wouldn't be able to revere it like you. Shame because I usually like such bold statements.

Edguy - anything after Hellfire Club. This is what they always wanted to make, not power metal. Power metal was the building blocks of their sound made by an immature band still not sure where they wanted to go. Now they sound confident and mature all the time. There's a great wealth of conviction in the sound now. The music rocks out harder than any other power metal trying to introduce this kind of 80s rock character. Praying for them to make another Theater of Salvation is misunderstanding the band. While I won't claim any great artistic message, I like that the music is completely without pretense or falsehood. It takes power metal's grandiosity and mixes it with hard rock attitude and driving, headbanging riffs. I think they've really integrated all the things they liked about old 80s rock/metal and mixed it with some real dramatic flair.

Sonata Arctica - Unia. People constantly say they're tired of cliche in music but when something as unprecedented and progressive as this comes from a band like SA, they shit all over it. I think this is a magnificently cathartic, emotional album. It's hard to listen to all in one sitting for how intense it gets, but the theatrical vocal lines and fluid, chaotic songwriting, along with the masterfully claustrophobic production, makes it one of the most individual albums in the whole genre. A masterwork.

Yeah I'm with Emp there on that one. I understand your point of "not giving a fuck what the masses want, and being only interested in your own vision", but indivuality on its own is not a good thing by default, and in that case it sounds fucking awful. At no point in any praise you give that album to you ever say that anything they do sounds good, and that's why people think you're always trolling.

I agree with late Edguy and Sonata. It's funny how these two bands were the archetypical euro power bands (Helloween/Stratovarius 2.0) and, with time, they have become the most original bands in the entire genre.

So many bands try to be Edguy now, from Freedom Call to Masterplan to a lot of rookie bands, and none of them have the same style or attitude to the music, so it's never even close to as good. The elements of the sound can be silly on their own, but Edguy just knows how to make it sound good.

Candlemass - Dactylis Glomerata

Okay fine, it sounds nothing like prior Candlemass albums... Who cares? This thing is filled with riffs that will rock your socks off. But it does more than that really, because if you're not into riffs then the album offers a lot of atmospheric moments as well. The vocalist obviously doesn't have the range that Messiah or Langquist had, but he is still very melodic, has a great sense of dynamics, and is very versatile and emotional. Candlemass will always be known for their neo-classical shredding, authentic falsetto doom, and heart piercing tone, but if it was ever appropriate for them to take leisure from this formula, it was in the late 90's, when Candlemass plugged into some serious fuzz crunchers, cranked it up, and let the doomy riffs fly. While the subsequent album From The 13th Sun is an entirely different journey, it also rocks and should be checked out ASAP by Candlemass fans or otherwise doom-mongers.

Black Sabbath - Never Say Die

This one is a little harder to make a case for. Thee are some obvious flaws with the album. Most people like to point out the lack of aesthetic and feel that the early Sabbath albums had. I find the blues rock feel to be a totally positive vibe, if anything it's the riffs that are lacking here (and we thought Iommi was an endless pool of them.) It took me a while to "get" this album with that in mind, until i realized the fact that it's simply just not a riffs album. It's a big jam, a barely proto-metal jam is all, but when you get down to it, it's a lot of fun. The bass lines carry out well through all of the songs and the drums are some of the grooviest and best on any Sabbath album. The high points in Iommi's compositions and soloing are very bright and outstanding, but considering they are sometimes short-lived, it makes the rest of the album feel inconsistent at times. Never Say Die has some of my favorite Sabbath tracks for sure, but also some of the (very few) that I just plain old don't like.

Dark Angel - Leave Scars

Not really maligned, but it annoys me to see how many people consider Darkenss Descends to be the last album in Dark Angels discography. I'll give you that the production quality really hampers the riffs some times, and inaudible riffs are often a turnoff in thrash, but boy, when they're audible, they'er audible. Some of DA's best riffs are on this album, it's the perfect halfway point between the preceding and following albums, capturing the darkness of the former and ruthlessness of the latter, and manipulating both tenfold. Rinehart also makes a solid replacement for Doty. I know both of their names are all up in the works right now, and you've probably all heard lots of opinions on both of them, but the fact of the matter is, this guy can (could?) really sing. There were atonal moments, sure, but what's important is that Rinehart didn't drag through the songs or keep the pace down, he offered a visceral vocal performance that could easily rival Doty's, and also wrote some of the deepest and most petrifying lyrics in Thrash history!

This, in spades. I had been listening to that album for a while before joining MA and I was absolutely shocked at the tepid response it received here and elsewhere. The ballads may be a bit melodramatic even by Sonata standards, but you have songs like the insanely complex "The Vice" and raging "The Harvest." Just great, creative stuff.

Korpiklaani - Tales Along This Road and (most notably) Manala. Perhaps this might be better phrased as good albums by a maligned band, but I feel that much of the negative view toward Korpiklaani came because their big surge in popularity came around the same time they released their worst albums by a longshot - Korven Kuningas and Karkelo. Even as a fan of "light" folk metal I dislike those albums as they have bland, repetitive songwriting, a lethargic demeanor and a complete lack of the thrashy riffing and frenetic energy that make's TATR and Manala so enjoyable. If more people heard stuff like this and this I think the band would have a much better following. BastardHead's review of Manala is right on the money in this regard, and you should all listen to him because he's smart.

Cradle of Filth - Thornography. Perhaps I'm viewing this like Zodi views IDI. Thornography is ridiculously cheesy, with an almost pop-punk atmosphere at times, nonsensical lyrics and equally bizarre vocal stylings from Dani, but to me it works in spite in itself. It's so goofy and over-the-top that I can't help but headbang to the "You mesmerize my soul, Diana" chorus at the end of "Under Huntress Moon", Dani's bizarre take on clean vocals in "The Foetus of a New Day Kicking" or enjoy the saxophone and keyboard-laden "Rise of the Pentagram." It seems that after a stretch of their three weakest albums, Midian, Damnation, and Nymphetamine - which were largely maligned for playing up gothic melodrama at the expense of the brooding atmosphere and sharp songwriting of their first three albums - Cradle decided to eschew any pretentions of seriousness for a while and just completely run with tongue-in-cheek shtick they had flirted with in the past. The subsequent albums dialed back the cheesiness a bit and found a nice balance between it and a thrashier, more energetic vibe - and for that reason I think they are better on the whole - but Thornography still warrants a few spins for me now and then. One of those "dumb fun in a good way" albums.

Celtic Frost - Cold Lake (*runs for cover...*)

This is a perfect example of an album's bad reputation overshadowing the actual worth of its content. Now don't get me wrong, it ain't a lost classic, but I truly believe the bad rap can all be pegged down to the dramatic departure CF took in its image (and less dramatically to its sound), which people instantly slagged off as selling out. They went from underground heroes to a laughing stock overnight. Tom Warrior's negative comments about the album haven't helped its stature either.

HOWEVER, just put all that baggage to one side. Forget the silly promo videos and PR photos and just listen to the music. If it was any old glam band who released this back in the day, it would be held up as a pretty good, gritty metal-hybrid attempt. Solid riffs that would have stood up well on any previous CF albums, some hard drumming giving the songs some grunt, there is enough to salvage from the album to make it a worthwhile listen. The cheesy vocal inflections from Tommy G don't help it much, but if you think of it glam album terms it's not nearly as bad.

Aura Noir must have appreciated its merits, compare the opening riffs of:

Petty Obsession http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0Pfcdyxqyk

and

Hades Arise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Qp7cgR9Ukk

The final song is pretty legitimately terrible. But literally everything else on there is great and very dark and morose sounding. I like all of it. But yeah the last song...eugh.

Gorefest's Soul Survivor.

I can see why it would be looked heavily down upon, it's a radio death metal accessible album with some huge hooks, catchy, simple riffs but also not nearly as technical as their ones before it like False and Erase.

If you dig Entombed's death and roll era, you're really going to enjoy this, Jan Chris still keeps the same low death metal vocal style and that's about the only thing that stays the same.

I'm really a massive fan boy of catchy metal and this is basically the definition of that.

Regarding bands like Morbid Angel that have a very heavy legacy, I'd rather they write material in the style I found enjoyable before even if they can't reach their former glory, than try something new and unheard of, and fall flat on their faces.

Will somebody please redeem Obituary for me???????????

Depends which maligned Obituary period you mean. If you mean the mid-tempo groove'n'roll albums complete with that rap song, those are indeed awesome, especially the rap song. If you mean the last two albums with Ralph Santolla's wanking, there is no way to redeem them, sorry.

wait, I know nothing about Obituary, they have a rap song?

I would say the same. I really like that album. Same with Point of Entry, or at least the first side of it. Heading Out to the Highway and Desert Plains rock my world (too).

Point Of Entry is my favorite 80s Priest album. I am not sorry.

Heir Apparent - One Small Voice (well, failsafeman hates it...)

First off, the production is fucking amazing. If one of the guitar techs farted it probably would have been picked up, yet the mix still sounds organic and alive. The bass frequencies are very deep and rich but also tight so they don't bloom all over the place and drown the mix in mud. Steve Benito might be a bit shaky in the upper extreme of his range but he sounds fantastic in his mid-range, especially on "Just Imagine", which is an absolute power-prog classic. Just the way it builds and builds and expands on the chorus instead of just repeating it...magnificent. The album has a lot of keyboards, but they fit nicely into the music and are content to sound like keyboards rather than a plastic orchestra. Even the cover of "The Sound of Silence" is good, adding a sense of tension and drama to the song and elaborating on Art Garfunkel's rather plain melodies from the original. It kinds of drags a bit with the consecutive ballads on side B but then closes with "The Fifth Season", which is like if Crimson Glory and Queensryche collaborated on a speed metal song and is heavy as fuck.

Dream Theater - Falling Into Infinity

I really think this album is still suffering from a backlash it got back during the time of it's release. You have to realize, Dream Theater had just released two CLASSIC albums that people still consider AMAZING, Images & Words and Awake. When you compare FII to either of those, yes, the songs have simpler instrumentation and song structures which is a minus for the prog metal crowd. That, and after the first track you get an absolutely terrible pop track. But, hey, you got that in Images & Words too and most people don't care. Now listen to the opener, "New Millenium", and you'll hear Dream Theater actually GROOVING, getting some feeling behind the music. Same thing with the epic "Lines in the Sand". There's no instrumental wank anywhere on this album, which is the criticism DT gets the most for their music. The one time they go overboard is in the absolutely gorgeous "Hell's Kitchen", with emotional shredding and chords along the lines of Buckethead. Put in their greatest ballad track in "Hollow Years", the energetic "Just Let Me Breathe", a heart-wrenching closer epic "Trial of Tears", and a few other great tracks and you get this album. Despite a few pop songs here and there, I consider this one of my favorites of DT.

I would go on to say why it's so much better than Scenes from a Memory, but this isn't a "Trash those overrated albums" thread.

Haha what the hell? I think I completely miss that album, I own their first four albums and frozen in time, but I had no idea they had an album between, nor would of guess that they would do a song like that, haha that made my day and Actually I had no idea they had two albums after frozen in time until now two. I guess that happens when you discover a band on spotify.

Kataklysm- The Prophecy: Stigmata of the Immaculate

Now, I don't think this album is hugely maligned by everyone, but for most people when they talk about Kataklysm, it's pretty much just "Sorcery." But for my money, The Prophecy is Kataklysm's best album. I love the strange vocals, the melodies and the ridiculous atmosphere of dread. It's just a fantastic album in my opinion. Breeding the Everlasting in a furious fucking track.

Cryptopsy- Once Was Not

Another album which I honestly don't understand the hate for. It's a technical, atmospheric mindfuck of an album, and Lord Worm's vocals are tremendous. "Carrionshine" and "Endless Cemetery" are beyond awesome

Once Was Not has some golden stuff, like Carrionshine. Worm's tone is excellent, but his performance is not quite as out of bounds as he has proved himself capable of being.

Most of the riffing on Once Was Not is nearly throwaway material, though. There isn't anything overly bad, but while there are excellent moments, they are few. I agree it should not have the maligned status it has, being considerably superior to the previous two albums.

I think it's their best since NSV, but I still don't think it's worth much more than a 70% or so. It's like they took on all the complaints people had made about the previous albums, but didn't know how to fix them. They recognized everyone hated their hardcore vocals, so they brought back Worm, but made him write tamer lyrics and he happened to have an aged, less volatile voice, likely not their fault the last one, but it still applies. They realised people missed the catchy groove, but had no idea how to slot them into violent tech death tunes, so they had random passages or full songs like "the Pestilence that Walketh in Darkness" which were pure catchy groove but none of the brutality that used to go with it. And finally they realised everyone hated the obnoxious, horrid wall of chaos production, so they went rawer, but the chosen sound was thin and sounded like a different form of shit.

It was better though, I agree with you guys there, but it was still not worthy of any particular praise.

I disagree, as Whisper Supremacy and And Then You'll Beg holding good, where Once Was Not didn't really work for me.

Hey, since I'm here, I guess I'll start with that.

Cryptopsy - And Then You'll Beg

Now considered Cryptopsy's second-worst album, I can sort of understand why, but I don't think it needs to be that far maligned. I can't see an isue with DiSalvo's vocals - sure, they're not Lord Worm, but they hold their own for me. Some good tunes on here, and far better than Once Was Not and The Unspoken King (I guess that's not hard).

Metallica - St. Anger

Yeah, the snare sounds like trash cans - it's obvious - but I can't help but love this. "Frantic" and "Dirty Window" come to mind as some choice cuts from the album. I understand the length of the songs and album as a whole can be a little off-putting, but it honestly doesn't phase me too much. It's raw and it's the absolute naked truth of what Metallica were circa 2003, and, despite its criticisms, shits all over the Load and Reload garbage.

Decapitated - Carnival is Forever

It's a miracle that this album even exists, but it does, and not many like it. I enjoy the groove they've put in their songs, and it's a nice step in direction for the band, even if it does exhibit more unpopular core elements. Now the drummer has left so I'm not sure on the future of this band, but I would like to see another album of this sort of style.

I really like both of those albums also. I also like Nile's "At the Gate of Sethu" and am not afraid to say that I highly enjoy the sweep picking noodly tech death, ie Brain Drill, Monumental Torment, and Origin.

On to the selling. At the Gate of Sethu's production may be funny, but the songs are just as awesome and technical as before. I think it is a really solid album marred by a not so great production.

Of course it is better than 'Scenes From A Memory'!
But it stands shakily for me even to this day. 'New Millenium' has the best bass sound of any DT song, second I guess to only 'Lines In The Sand' which is also on the album but it is rather dry elsewhere. The riffs are inconsequential and keyboards really pick up a lot of the slack and James LaBrie whom I love offers a most dry and uninteresting vocal performance. 'Just Let Me Breathe' gets the groove thing 'New Millenium' tried better.

That said, 'Lines in The Sand', 'Burning My Soul' and 'Trial of Tears' are all amazing songs and 'Hollow Years' is just the right touch of ballad.

I'll sell you...

Testament- Souls of Black

I fucking love this album. It is maligned not so much for the music but for the production which is all reverby and tinny in places but I think that is what gives it the special quality. After the first three thrashers, this is what the band needed to take things down a notch and get darkly introspective. In a way, it is their South of Heaven except with more coherent guitar solos (although SoH has better riffs). Every song on here holds well with me but I particularly love 'As The Seasons Grey', 'Malpractice', the title track and 'The Legacy' where the sparse atmosphere makes it sound so morose and so moving in away similar to Helstar's 'The Curse Has Passed Away'. Chuck Billy puts up a spirited performance and although there's not much in the way of memorable riffing on the album, Eric and Alex's leads are a whole other thing. Very evocative, searing and dynamic.

Bullituary Obituaboyz is fucking awesome. Fnially, someone appreciates that awesomeness. RESPECT

Accept - Death Row

Probably one of my favorite metal albums of all time and easily my favorite Accept disc. Yeah...it's got a weird fuzzy production and only one guitar but that's really where it's faults end. The whole thing is loaded with Wolf Hoffman's crunchiest riffs, everything is instantly catchy, Udo sounds vicious and the choruses.....oh man...they rain down like hell.

DO ANYTHING....FOR MONEY....I'M A WHORE
WHAT ELSE? WHAT'S IN IT FOR ME? WHAT ELSE?

And that opening drive of "The Beast Inside" with Udo spitting "I lose my human touch, I'm a killing machine".

The consistent band thread made me think of one, Blind Guardian's A Twist in the Myth. The album sticks out like a sore thumb in their post Imaginations diiscography, forgoing overblown synths and choirs of Hansi for simple catchy rocking tunes, and dammit, simple rocking tunes are better than mountains of synthphonics! The more down to Earth approach lets Hansi's real voice come out to play so he's not drowning himself out to.sound epic like the albums before it, and he opts to deliver his lines with a little more gusto to.carry the simple hooks than his downright tediously careful and mundane performance on the last shitty album. Admittedly some of the songs aren't that great, which seems to come naturally with the poppier approach, and some subject matters are pretty lame (Peter Pa, really guys?), but for me its the only thing they've done since Imaginations which is worth a listen in full rather than just skipping to the two or three songs which are good.