My only issue with Turn Up the Night is that it is such a banger that I restart the album 2-3 times. Usually I listen to albums not individual songs but this song is so awesome.

Eeeeh....E5150?

Oh well.

Such a killer instrumental. Its darkness perfectly complements the darkness of the album.

Kill had a lot better songwriting that they are yet to match in my opinion.

My unpopular opinion about Cannibal Corpse would be that while I love and dig George Corpsegrinder Fisher style, I don't think that Cannibal released better albums than their first four after Chris left the band. They were so grim and dark, they were a scary band in those days, then with George that dark energy kinda left and the band became much gimmickier in their gore and zombies concept, much less attached to the manmade horrors and darkness of those first albums.

Something I've noticed with Cannibal corpse albums is that they tend to have this sort of "action-reaction" thing to them. By that I mean it's like they always release a great album followed by a so-so album. TOTM is great, The bleeding is... ok, Vile is great, Gallery of Suicide is ok, Bloodthirst is one of their best, Gore Obssessed is probably their most forgettable, A Skeletal Domain is brilliant, Red Before Black is ok, Violence Unimagined is great, Chaos Horrific is ok. It feels like they always put their best ideas into one album and then have to use all the leftovers from it before moving on to something new.

Honestly, I grew tired of the sexual violence lyrics that Barnes loved. Granted I couldn't make out anything he was saying on the last three he did with CC. I'm not a huge fan of the vocals he moved to after the debut.

I do at times miss that percussive riffing they had with Rusay, but my favorite guitar duo was probably O'Brien and Barrett.

For me gore death metal is the musical equivalent of campy 80's slasher gore flicks, so other than getting less sexual I didn't really care.



For me The Bleeding is one of their best albums. Those riffs are catchy as fuck but still death metal. And Gore Obsessed is one of the best they did. Actually looking at your rankings I think we are mirror opposites on CC, which is cool.

For someone like me who didn't experience the impact of early (Barnes-)CC firsthand and got into the band with Vile/Gallery/Bloodthirst almost a decade after he left, there is zero reasons for preferring the pre-Corpsegrinder era. They've been ultimately superior to their earlier incarnation right from the refresh in 1996.

I tend to like it all but usually reach for Corpseginder-era albums over the earlier stuff.

I’d venture to say that Tomb/ Bleeding albums will do the best in the upcoming DM poll...that’s not to say I prefer them over Corpsgrinder era but those two had a huge impact on the scene back in a day and still considered their best albums by many. I mean, Bloodthirst would get my vote but not by much over Tomb/Bleeding, both still have that “charm” of golden age of DM

Not trying to convince anyone but just stating what my ears can hear and my brain process:

— I definitely think that beatdown hardcore (ex. 25 Ta Life or Bulldoze) and metalcore (ex. Integrity or Earth Crisis) bands are leaning more towards metal than hardcore punk, and that they sound way more like Dying Fetus, Wasteform or Internal Bleeding and not so much like Minor Threat, Bad Brains or Black Flag (actual hardcore punk).

— Talking about brutal death metal, I think that Dying Fetus, Internal Bleeding, Wasteform, Devourment, Criptopsy, Eternal Suffering and all that have more in common with real deathcore bands like Despised Icon, early Suicide Silence or The Red Chord than they do with most melodic death metal (funnily enough this one has a lot of melodeath fan agreeing but make deathcore fans cry hard).

— I can go as further to say I genuinely would find it more logical to put Internal Bleeding and Dying Fetus in the same broader category as 25 Ta Life, but find absolutely no logic behind putting them in the same category as, let's say, power metal or traditional heavy metal.

— I think that most bands labeled as deathcore nowadays aren't even deathcore (death metal + hardcore) but just very and chuggy metalcore with little to no death metal influence, or a weird mixture between The Acacia Strain, Dissection and Fleshgod Apocalypse.

— I think that chuggy/rhythmic breakdowns aren't a hardcore thing since I don't think bands like Minor Threat ever did them, but purely a thrash/groove metal thing that started with Slayer and Pantera, and got later popularised by 90s metalcore who liked this. I wouldn't be surprised that metalcore was born accidentally when crossover thrash bands started to mimick what many thrash metal bands would do: slow the tempo, tune down, get angrier vocals (comparing Cro-Mags with Integrity makes sense of it).

This will likely split the opinions on this board, with some agreeing and other vehemently disagreeing.

So far, this year, we've been treated to another round of new albums from 'legacy' bands Priest, Saxon, Riot, and Accept. Last year, we were served new albums by Queensryche, Virgin Steele, Metal Church, Metallica, & Megadeth.

I've enjoyed all of these most recent albums, but in comparison, I can safely state that modern Iron Maiden is vastly superior to the modern output of all of these bands.
(With modern loosely defined as anything released in the last ~25 years.)

I agree with all of this, good take on brutal death metal, deathcore and hardcore. The only thing that I would add is that BDM has a few schools and styles that don't share that hardcoresque sound that bands like Dying Fetus or Internal Bleeding have, but yeah those bands are a true hardcore take on death metal. For example, stuff like Nithing has to do more with noise music and experimental music than hardcore and groove. And there are a few BDM bands like Kraanium, Goregasm or Katalepsy that oscillate between stuff like grindcore/goregrind and brutal death metal, but those bands aren't too groovy or have that street hc style of those bands that you mentioned.

Also, check out Cold As Life if you haven't, you will love that band, heaviest hardcore album that I have listened to in my whole life, and it was one of John Gallagher of Dying Fetus favorites in the Baltimore scene.

You're right!

I think it's safe to say the hardcore-influenced brutal death metal is mostly a NYDM stuff, or maybe more accurately there's a shared approach to music between the NYDM and NYHC scenes. But it goes somewhat beyond NY, maybe more a North-East US stuff because Dying Fetus are for Maryland, and Abnegation from Pennsylvania if I'm not wrong it's in that same area. Another sick discovery I made recently: Torn In Half from Boston with a very raw type of death metal mixed in with hardcore elements.

Just like the early Swedish scene was somehow a crust punk take on death metal. I don't know where I'd put on TXDM scene on that regards, they have Devourment, they also have a very solid one oscillating between old-school death metal and hardcore: Creeping Death.

But that's overall something that satisfy me a lot in terms of sound. I used to be almost an exclusive deathcore fan a bit more than ten years ago but at some point got a bit out of it, and now I find most bands insanely boring. The Acacia Strain and Black Tongue (none of them are deathcore even if people insist on that) are among my favourite bands, but with everyone just copying their heavy and slow downtempo breakdowns and mixing it into the most generic brand of Dissection-core with symphonies and vocal olympics don't do the trick anymore, not talking about djent who basically convinced some of them to stop riffing altogether lol... all the excitement I got from Despised Icon or stuff like that, I can no longer find it in modern deathcore, but I only find it in brutal death metal. But the more I become a death metal fan, the more I end up realising the limit between death metal and (real) deathcore is thinner and undefined. Another unpopular opinion that this could inspire me: I often feel that the distinction between "core" and "metal" is not always purely based on music, but more on the subculture and the fashion. I'm sure if Internal Bleeding was a straight edge vegan band with baseball caps and stretched ears they wouldn't be considered as metal as they are hahahaha...

Just one thing I'd like to add for Katalepsy, I feel like with their more recent albums they have adopted a more groovy and yet technical approach, away from slam death metal, their later album even has quite different albums. But I definitely love them more now, Autopsychosis was my favourite. And I need to check Cold As Life asap!

Turn Up the Night is a bit of a Neon Knights retread but it's still great. Always fun to hear old 80s Sabbath in speedy chugging mode. Incredibly melodic, almost Thin Lizzy/BOC-ish lead guitar licks all over that track.

Maiden really is the best of everything you listed. Though the new Priest this year is finally back to the level of quality I'd expect from them, despite some personal wishes for a more interesting production or musical direction sometimes... those are some really fun songs all the way through.

I couldn't get on board at all with calling the sad efforts from Queensryche, Accept or Megadeth better than what Maiden's been doing.

I think Satan, Motorhead, Rush and Heavy Load have or had really done excellent at doing new stuff after so long active though - there's always some... Blue Oyster Cult, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple and others have done great too.

You're making it sound like prefering Barnes stuff can't come from anywhere but nostalgia, which is just plain wrong. I love Bloodthist, Kill, Evisceration Plague, but my all time favorite CC album is Tomb of the Mutilated. It's one of the all time best death metal albums. The songwriting, the production, the riffs, the performance, everything is perfect on that album.

Corpsegrinder era CC is Barnes era CC minus atmosphere and plus annoying shouty macho vocals. Pass.

I get how a lot of people like both eras since musically there aren't many differences, but George's vocals are just so bad imo. That creepy, squirming proto-brutal death metal spirit left the band when Barnes left.

I reckon part of why I like Severe Torture so much is because they basically sound like CC if they never lost Barnes. Hmmm.

I love Corpsegrinder, Torture and Kill are amazing albums but you have a point there man. The first four albums of CC were creepy and dark as fuck, imagine hearing Butchered at Birth in 1991, people lost their mind over that stuff. The front cover of those albums, all were scandalous and sent a paradigm in death metal. I 100% agree with your comment about them being proto brutal death metal, they were so ahead of times in so many ways, they became the stamp of what a death metal band should be.

Am I the only one who thinks Barnes vocals already sounded like shit in The Bleeding? If anyone thinks they sound anything like in TOTM, then they must be joking. He already sounds like a cat trying to pass a furball while getting stepped on. By far the weakest part of the album.

I dunno. Like, I get it that some people just prefer the Barnes era. It has a lot of strengths and things that it did better than the Corpsegrinder era. There's no doubt that Cannibal was genuinely transgressive and horrifying at first, and there was a really depraved atmosphere around those first four albums that gave way to a more straightforward and cartoonish approach to their blood and gore. Look at it like the difference between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Nightmare on Elm Street 3: One is really filthy, unnerving, and raw in a way that nothing else at the time was, while the other isn't really any of those things but is instead really exciting, unique, and fun. Broadly belong to the same genre but aim for different things and succeed in very different ways. Maybe it's not convincing to compare one of the most beloved horror films of all time to a forgotten slasher sequel but I promise it makes sense in my brain.

But what I will never understand are the people who act like it was some great tragedy that Barnes was kicked out and we were robbed of many more years of greatness. Y'all know he isn't fuckin' dead, right? He has remained active in the business ever since and has become recognized as the undisputed worst death metal vocalist with any sort of prestigEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEge. It's not even a contest. Corpsegrinder may not be your thing but I fucking refuse to beliEEEEEEEEEEEve that any red-blooded human on the planet thinks that he's worse than Barnes at any concurrent point in history since 1994. Even then, it's not really controversial to say that he already sounded like shit on The Bleeding and the fact that the album is still awesome is a huge testament to how good the rest of the band was at the time. Hell, have you heard the isolated vocals on Tomb of the Mutilated? On arguably the band's best (and undoubtedly their most iconic) album, he already sounded fucking terrible once you paid attention even medium-hard. We were robbed of nothing. Apart from being an unlikable primadonna jackass, he's been coasting off his reputation from the 18 months in his life when he was considered one of the best in the world at what he does and his body of work since his ousting proves without a shadow of a doubt that Cannibal dodged a fucking bullet by cutting bait when they did. I'll believe you if you say that the Barnes era is prima facie better than the Corpsegrinder era. I won't agree but I'll understand. I will not believe you if you say that they made a mistake or were irreparably damaged by firing him.

The new Priest was pretty strong, spinning it now. I finally ditched my "Where is KK" and accepted Richie Priest as Priest. Still wish KK was back... But Halford still has enough charisma to drive this band and the guitars are solid.

I did pick up the first La Torre Queensryche album and I was surprised by it, easily the best album they did since Promised Land IMO so I need to check out the last couple.

Saxon and Accept...the albums are listenable but not sure they do anything that 100 other albums I have do, and not big enough fan of either band to buy CD for collectors sake. Saxon was great the time I caught them live but on record I don't really need much more than The Eagle Has Landed. Accept I didn't feel the need to follow much past Stalingrad.

Megadeth put out a good last couple albums. Metallica as well but I think they need to edit these albums down a bit. Aim for 40-50 minutes guys. Trim the fat.

Maiden...well they just don't put out music that interests me anymore. They will have a good song on an album usually, but the "epics" are just long and lack the instrumental heft to support the lengths. The last one just sounded old to me. Lacked energy. When I played Writing on the Wall at 1.25 speed on YouTube I found it much more enjoyable. Obviously plenty of people love them so that's awesome. And Bruce finally dropped another album that I really enjoyed so it evens out.

They were pretty weak by that point. While that is easily my favorite CC album of the Barnes era, and top 3 overall, the vocals were easily the worst part. He was already turning into squealer. But for me on all those early CC albums he did the vocals were the least interesting thing. Sure they were groundbreaking at the time but that kind of vocal by and large is interchangeable to me. You could have put any gurgly DM vocalist on that and it would have had little impact for me. I find Corpsegrinder more distinctive and effective. Plus he's understandable which for me is nice.

On the whole Barnes versus Corpsegrinder debate that resurfaces every time we talk about CC, I have to say that the reason why I love Barnes era CC was never really because of him specifically. And while I actually enjoy his vocals on TotM (more because of their personnality and less because of their technical proficiency), I don't think that CC lost all that much when they kicked him out. He was already spent, and his vocals on The Bleeding were pretty meh. But also, I think Corpsegrind brought a breath of fresh air to the band. I was never a fan of the lyrics on The Bleeding, which I felt were pushing it a little too far on the mockery of victims of sexual crimes. Don't get me wrong I love the gruesome lyrics of the first three albums, but they were always kind of like a b-movie to me, and the words were spoken through the mouth of caracters. Deranged psychotic murderers, necrophiles and whatnot. But I don't know... The Bleeding feels very off to me.

I like how CC turned out with Corpsegrinder and how their sound evolved, and really enjoy a lot of the band's material with him. Although I wish they would take a bit more creative risks these days.

While I love the songs Stripped Raped and Strangled and Fucked with a Knife its getting pretty spicy.

But She Was Asking For It after all.

If you've written a song called "Entrails Ripped From a Virgin's Cunt", you're immortal in my book.

Those lyrics were fucked up and very edgy but in 91 nobody was saying that gross stuff, it was for shock value, and it worked. If we view them with today's eyes, yeah, those lyrics are pretty cringe, nobody can say the word necropedophile with a straight face. But in the context of those albums, it made sense.

I don't know what happened to Chris voice, it kept getting worser and worser in the following years and Six Feet Under always was a terrible band compared to CC. Having said that, I think Corpsegrinder found his style more in the 2000s and 2010s rather than in the 90s.

Honestly I don't have a problem with the lyrics which were clearly trying to be shocking. But at the same time I don't find them part of why I enjoy the first few CC albums. I quite honestly don't really know the lyrics for most of the songs on Butchered and Tomb as I haven't really spent a lot of time with the lyrics sheet and I can't really understand 90% of what he is singing.

It's not so much that lyrics shock me on The Bleeding, as much as I find them to be a bit in bad taste and too obvious. It's a very personnal opinion, of course.

Do you actually pay attention to the lyrics? I barely understand them most of the time, even in my native language's metal bands.

The Bleeding is super easy to understand lyrically, no matter how much attention.

Tomb/Butchered, not so much

discussion about this and that concerning CC and SFU and writing EEEE seems most popular thread on metal earth

unpopular: I love the ACDC cover album! that's fun, I'm playing this once a year maybe but still
I also enjoy some SFU, Maximum violence, Death rituals... time to time, don't need more, and it's also the case of CC, thanx for first LPs, thanx for some LPs time to time, I love A skeletal domain but all the rest is average and boring to me, not THAT boring but I won't spent money for that
and if I need serious DM I will go for Nile, Asphyx, Immolation, Suffocation, and a lot more bands with serious content

today I had my King's LP (I expected it later but I was confused by another order)
this cost me 40euro, I had a few euro shipping with some other records but they did sent me the rest of this order earlier, so 2 package for one order, right
today I got that, a package into a package, for a record made of plastic in a gatefold cover totally avoidable, with a sheet of poor paper with lyrics

TOTAL: Paper/cardboard = 500 grs /// Plastic = 180grs

not to forget mailing, around 10 or 15, some for confirmation, others like 2 for saying "order on the way" but I had 3 mails for saying "your package has been delivered" just because maybe I missed that point ?

if we can't get earth with evil & devil maybe global pollution can do it ?

The cover art of Rottrevore's debut album is one of the worst I've seen. If a band like Deicide had used that painting, there would be memes about how bad it is.

Yeah, I wonder if he began to grunt a bit higher was due to a choice or vocal deterioration? But he is more understandable, though he really sounds ragged on that album.

It's not that bad. Seen plenty worse. Iniquitous is a great sounding album so that is the main thing.

Honestly, probably a bit of deterioration due to the lifestyle, but I'd guess that's it's more of an attempt to be intelligible. Can be a hard line to ride as a harsh vocalist.

not sure how unpopular any of this is, but i find it curious that after dallas formed narcotic wasteland in 2011, nile has done two more albums with him, and one without - which is the best of the three - meanwhile both the narcotic wasteland albums are much better than any of those three... maybe better than anything nile has done since annihilation

Both "Wishing Well" and "Lady Evil" are fucking awesome tracks. Both are killer melodic tunes, with "Wishing Well" being an absolute classic. I don't think this is really a minority opinion. "Lady Evil" had a terrific groove, something that you don't hear as oten in Dio Sabbath as in he Ozzyyears, and it's very welcome when it appears -- love how the song starts out with te heavy bass riff and it's infernally catchy.

We all like albums for different reasons though and I'm sure almost none of us could ever universally agree on what the "worst" song on any particular album we like is. That's fine. Most artists wouldn't put a song on a record they thought was bad.

Not sure if it's just me, but I get a Zeppelin vibe from "Slipping Away". The vibe isn't bad at all; that swingin' groove is certainly Bonham-like and a bit unusual for Sabbath. It's not a favourite but acool thing to put on the album. I know Sabbath and Zepelin are on some level considered rivals (I know at least Sab thought so to an extent in te 70s) but the bands do have some common ground and maybe Sabbath did borrow from the slightly olderband to an extent, as this song does sort of demonstrte.