Whoa. I had a feeling this would be bad, but that review was murderous. If this is as horrid as described, we have a new milestone of awfulness on our hands.

So this boxset is out in less than two weeks, there's no new Virgin Steele song online out there, yet DeFeis' ego seems bigger than ever.

Taken from their website

50/50 chance it doesn't come out for another year and a half or so.

This project is so dumb. The whole idea of releasing 5 discs of all kinds of stuff thrown together makes no sense - what if I want new music, but don't care about covers and already own the albums they're re-issuing? I have to pay for 5 CDs when I only want one or two.

There are still no preview tracks, which is a bad sign. I concur that it probably isn't actually finished and won't make its 23/11 release date.

It's all over Amazon as well as other sites for pre-ordering though. So I guess it really is happening but the band just doesn't care to preview any new track or anything. As far as the new stuff goes, I just see it as a full length album of new stuff (the first disc), with some extras here and there (the other two). I don't care about covers much in general, I'm just hoping some tunes will be listenable here and there.

Season of Mist Europe had it on preorder a coupe of weeks ago; I noticed because I was there to preorder the Grand Declaration of War remix cd. Beyond that, I don't know, nor do I really care to.

SO the band finally posted a trailer...that's still not revealing much.

Ahhhhhh the vocals oh noooooo hahaha

Worst drum programming in decades! And those midi orchestral instrument sounds! I can't understand how any of you could have any expectations whatsoever on this.

It's like a hit of adrenaline when the tracks from 2002 start playing.

Remember when Virgin Steele wrote songs instead of...whatever this new stuff is?

Holy hell those vocals and that drum sound. My ears! The review was not kidding. This atrociously bad.

Wow. This is like if David DeFeis got in a horrible car crash and his brains got scrambled but he still wanted to write music. Just baffling really. It has the elements that Virgin Steele used to do but executes them all amazingly poorly, in a laughable manner really.

The bizarre thing is, that I Will Come For You fragment doesn't even sound live - atleast the vocals still sound processed or whatnot. I'll assume DeFeis will sound like that on the majority of these tracks and therefor even ruin the somewhat decent new stuff.

I find it funny how DeFeis mentioned most bands don't have the balls like Virgin Steele have, yet the comment section of their latest videos, including this one, is disabled.

DeFeis working in some Damien Storm influence, sick!

Man, it's hard for me to hear this and then listen to songs like "Great Sword of Flame" or "Dust From the Burning" and recognize them as the same band.

"I will come for you" is like on of my favorite songs and hearing that rendition felt like the equivalent of someone shitting on your childhood dog's corpse.

What I really want to know is who the hell was the blind and deaf demographic that actually wanted more from this band in their current state.

Oh dear.

No kidding - that, along with Pharaoh's "Speak to Me" is a unique niche of midtempo, dramatic, slow-burn openers. This is painful to hear.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

holy fucking shit, dude. Album(s) of the year or what???

I'm just starting to get into this band but "Noble Savage" is excellent stuff. I had a newer album of theirs years ago and it had ultra-weak, almost whispered vocals.

I'm looking at their M-A entry now ... did their guitarist and bassist switch places? I've never heard of guitarists/bassists doing that in a band.

It's just that their main guitarist Edward Pursino - who used to contribute quite a bit to the songwriting process, hasn't been too involved in any studio albums for about over a decade now. Apparently David writes more with Josh nowadays.

You better check The Marriage of Heaven and Hell series, Invictus and The House of Atreus Act I if you're new to the band.

I think I bought one of those back in the day and it has those whisper vocals. Pretty original I guess, I give them credit for that. I have to wonder if he was recording in his apartment or something at that time.

Man, I absolutely love DeFeis' vocals on that string of albums up to and including Atreus 2. I guess I see what you mean about the whispering sometimes, I just think his voice was so expressive in timbre, snarls and whispers and yells and those "YOW!!"s and then super clean and soulful. But then, yeah wow, something happened, now the "YOW!!!"s are so fucking cringe. Now he's still trying to do all that expressive stuff but it just does NOT work at all.

*DeFeis's screeching completely dissipates*

I would've been okay with a Nocturnes of Hellfire & Damnation pt.2 but that's a pass for me.

But this sounds worse than their previous album so you can't blame people like me for not knowing how much they would've musically retrogressed in just three years.
Nocturnes of Hellfire & Damnation might've sounded weak and silly but this new stuff is borderline parody.

I think it's quite hard to judge so far - but it does seem that this new stuff would suffer from the crap that's been plaguing VS modern outputs: lack of real drums, auto-tuned vocals and whatnot.

Having that said, it seems that the most reasonable comments on the band's Facebook get deleted - plenty of people complain the stuff we just did.

Wait ... VS are using auto-tune now???? Oh man ....

That was physically painful to sit through and I think I'm now mentally scarred. I will be hearing this shit during sleep paralysis as a decrepit and demonic-looking DeFeis stares at me from the corner of my bedroom.

So that Gothic Voodoo Anthems disc has leaked online. I'll listen to it soon but expect the worst. D:

EDIT: Yeah this is bad. I mean the idea of these orchestral versions isn't bad, but DeFeis doing all these radom roars where they don't belong gets me on my nerves quick. Not to mention the entire thing doesn't even sound live and raw - you still get these silly autotuned belts appearing out of nowhere. Disappointing.

Holy... hell. I was anticipating something awful, but that really exceeded expectations. Kind of remarkable in some sick way.

This is the band that wrote Noble Savage? Even the last two albums sound quite good compared to this. Can you imagine sitting through three discs of that... stuff?

The second disc has leaked too. Here's hoping it will be partially better...

EDIT: Yeah this is terrible, too. Some things...

-David sounds even worse on the first track than on some of the Nocturnes tunes (at least he sounded bored on some of those there) and here the vocals seriously reach a new low.

-There's some hilarious ''drumming'' on the brief piano tracks near the end that must have been programmed by the guy himself.

-That ''Tripple Goddess'' track sounds funny - introduced by DeFeis speaking before eventually shutting his mouth and let some random chick/guy take over the vocals even if the track goes nowhere.

-The acoustic live versions of ''Twilight of the Gods'' and ''Transfiguration'' are cool though. DeFeis actually sounds restrained on these tracks and sings fluently like he used to, even though I wouldn't be surprised if these versions were written years before.

I remember buying the Black Light album and thinking it was pretty OK, with even some good songs, but even then I could tell VS was on the path to the hilariously bad. Now I doubt my memory of that album, was I just trying really hard to like it?

I refuse to listen to any of this shit and sully my memory.

edit: Emp, good parallel between I Will Come For You and Speak to Me! I think Speak to Me is such a unique song I have to admit I was quite disappointed with the rest of Pharaoh's music after being introduced to them thru that song.

Yeah I like melodic metal albums starting off with those mid-tempo tunes. Doesn't happen all that often though.

Yeah, a fast barn burner is always a good choice but the midpaced gambit pays off much better when it comes to memorability when it works, imo.

I'm listening to it, and I'm struck by the almost complete lack of guitar. Does Pursino actually play on this at all?

Edit - made it through maybe 5 songs. Put on that shit new version of I Will Come for You, and switched that off after a verse. Then put on The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and cried. Fuck you and your bullshit vanity project David. That review was accurate.

This first disk has leaked too and...some of these songs actually have their moments. Imagine a darker, more theatrical approach on Life Among the Ruins and you're not far off. Unfortunately DeFeis ruins even the decent moments on this thing - the combination of him whispering/straining on his more aggressive lines while still retaining on auto-tune is just a huge turn off. I've read some reviews that actually praised the vocals and it really makes me wonder whether they weren't paid to do so.

Par for the course; that's how quite a bit of "reviewing" has worked since forever.

I don't think I have the heart of probing the leaked contents after that preview and you guys' comments.

DeFeis has officially butchered several band covers as of now. Never have I heard more painful renditions of Zeppelin, Sabbath, The Doors...
I'm all for trying out new things, but at least make them cohesive and interesting, like what Type O Negative did with Paranoid.

Even Kanye's take on Bohemian Rhapsody doesn't sound quite as bad now.

I listened to a few tracks.

Am I being overdramatic by saying that this is literally the next St Anger or Cold Lake - a legendary Bad Album that future bad albums will get measured by?

I am shocked by how awful it is. The drums are electronic and programmed, the orchestral elements are so fake they might as well be midi, and the guitars and bass sound like they came from a plugin. DeFeis's vocals are shrill girlish squeals and irritating half-spoken lines - the same as their last album, basically.

The remake of "By the Hammer of Zeus (And the Wrecking Ball of Thor") has a terrible electronic beat sounds like it was made by a 14 year old on Soundcloud. Most of the new songs have no memorable elements whatsoever.



Reviewers want free stuff. If they bash the bands, labels stop sending them free stuff. This is why I don't read any zines and don't plan to start.