<i>War And Pain</i> and <i>Angel Rat</i> are my favorite albums by Voivod! DD

I guess I'll do Queensryche.

Beginning Power/Prog Era 1983-1985:

This is my favorite era of the band. The lyrics were either about fantasy/science fiction(the EP) or Orwell influenced(The Warning). The music was pretty progressive at times, but very riff oriented with a surprisingly solid rhythm section and absolutely searing vocals by Geoff.

Transitional era 1985-1987:

On Rage for Order they took the old sound and streamlined it basically. The music was more accessible, the lyrics were more real life oriented, the vocals were tamed down a bit but still pretty awesome, and it overall became a bit simpler. The look was also a bit glam-ish.

Successful era 1988-1991:

I group these two albums together because they really are when the band became popular. O:M was a rather progressive album with lots of twists and turns but in general it was a pretty commercial sounding album albeit a great one. Empire was even more streamlined with EVEN CLEANER production, far less riffs and lots of pop hooks. The soaring vocals were diminished on O:M and almost completely gone by Empire.

"Experimental" era 1993-1999:

This is when things IMO started to get a little weird. PL was still fairly progressive but had quite a few grungy stuff on there and the vocals were completely different then ever before. The twin leads that were still somewhat prevalent on Empire are totally gone here(pretty much anyways). HITNF had kind of an Alternative rock sound to it and even more streamlined sounding. This sound was continued on Q2K except worse.

Confused era 2000-now:

I call it the confused era because each album has been different and seemingly worse each one. Tribe was pretty good, still kind of alternative sounding but it was far from a bad album. Then we had O:M II which was a disappointment and then AS which is utter crap.

Of course the loss of Chris DeGarmo had to do with the loss of quality a little bit(ironically the only good album they've done post PL is the one when Chris returned), but I think it just had to do with overall change of musical interest. They didn't like metal anymore or they didn't like how it was stereotyped so by 1990 they dropped it.

Well said! Not to mention funny as hell!

Wouldn't it be ironic if it was the worst one?

Indeed, that's not ironic, it's proof that the first part of the statement is valid (to him).

Edit: Other words used to be here.

Indeed, the irony really would be when the album after the return would be the worst.

Some English lesson for those who need it (don't respond if you don't feel you need it)

Irony:

Example: If a soldier gets killed by a landmine, it is sad. If his son gets killed by a landmine later on, it is doubly sad.

If, however, his son's life is saved by standing on a landmine (for instance, if he hadn't stood on the landmine, he would have been mown down by a machine gun, but now only his left leg is gone), then that would be irony.

Cheers

Okay, what does this have to do with what I said about Chris DeGarmo/Queensryche etc.? Is it some kind of relation to American Soldier because that's all I can fathom.

Oh and to the Nightwish guy, I forgot to mention the "so warm, so sexy" line. That's utterly hilarious.

It is as an example of what irony is. It was the first thing that sprung to mind. the soldier is unrelated to Queensryche's songs.

A bit of description would be great, like how they've sounded closer to doom metal at times, classic heavy metal at others and power metal around the Tyr era, based on whatever singer might be around at that time of course, if you want. I don't think any band's career can be divided in phases according to a single criterion.

Get out of here, thats their 2nd best album

Aside from a couple tracks, like Tutankhamen, it was purty lame.

Well atleast your one of the people who realise how good that song is, really underrated

The only time I've tried to hear Nightwish's debut album I ended up horrified and desperately hurrying to change for something which wouldn't drive me insane. One of the least listenable albums I've heard, ever.

Time for another band. This time it's going to be Nokturnal Mortum. I guess their career can be divided into four distinct, important phases.

First of all, we have the (1) pre-black metal phase of the band. This phase only contains one recording, the band's first under their Nokturnal Mortum name, a 50-minute demo (basically an album) called Twilightfall. This is a brilliant mix of death, doom, heavy, with some folk and a certain, darker black metal ambience to it. It has next to nothing to do with the band's following recordings save for some atmospheric hints which would return at the beginning of the second phase of their history.

Their second (2) melodic black metal phase basically consists of the Lunar Poetry demo as well as the first two albums. The demo's probably the best example of the classic "slavonic symphonic black metal" sound typified by bands such as Noktunal Mortum, Dub Buk (first demo), early Lucifugum and, with more folk inserted into the music, Kroda. The albums both evolve from this point towards a harsher, more classic (but still very melodic) black metal sound culminating with To The Gates of Blasphemous Fire, which itself is inspired by Emperor's sophomore album.

The band's third (3) stagnation/early folk NSBM phase is, as part of its name implies, their weakest. This weakness is especially apparent on the rather misconstructed NeChrist, and album with mixes folk and black metal in one of the worst ways imaginable, dividing the two instead of melding them together properly as Kroda can. The following recordings, Weltanschauung and its complementary EP, The Taste of Victory, are a bit of an improvement but somehow the sound is still unsatisfactory, with overlong songs trying to be epic but only reaching a certain level of acceptable, not great. This phase also sees the band putting some mild NS elements into their lyrics, mostly stuff about White unification, in contrast with their apparently apolitical (within the music, not the members' opinions) past. This has no real effect on the music since said opinions haven't disappeared since.

Finally, I can safely say that Nokturnal Mortum have hit their fourth (4) rebirth phase with their newest album, The Voice of Steel, which attempts essentially what its predecessor did but with less poorly integrated folk elements, less misplaced sound clips of war, and infinitely more quality. Songs like Ukraine are amazing and none of the tracks, some of which reach 11-12 minutes, ever seem long. They've certainly set a great precedent for themselves now with this album, almost returning to the glory days of Lunar Poetry in terms of quality. This is one band who seem to have found themselves after some years of meandering and their future seems rather bright at the moment.

Aw come off it. It's not amazing but it certainly isn't unlistenable.

Well, I just listened to it again and it was a hell of a lot better than during that first time. Some of the tracks have hideous amounts of cheese attached to them, especially around the beginning of the album, but it's tolerable overall. I need to listen to it a few more times to get a good idea, perhaps it's as good as the next couple of albums.

Nice Nokturnal Mortum rundown, though I'd say Weltanschaaung and the latest definitely belong to the same 'era.' I think you're underrating Weltanschaaung a bit too, though I do often skip the interlude tracks. Everything else is pretty much dead-on.

Some tracks are fun (Nymphomaniac Fantasia, Tutankhamen) but most of it is boring. Oceanborn however is pure awesomeness.

I like it, and it definitely is a middle ground album between NeChrist (which is a bit mediocre) and The Voice of Steel, which is awesome. My tendency to put it in the same category with the former, considerably weaker album is mostly due to my heavy listening and currently hyped-up opinion of The Voice of Steel while Weltanschauung has been left in the dark a little bit (haven't heard it in a while). As I'll return to it I might very well revise the initial categorization.

I consider "Weltanschaaung" the beginning of this era they're currently in because it was the first to take in more of an epic Hammerheart influence. There was such a long wait between NeChrist and Weltanschaaung that it felt like a rebirth of sorts for the band. I'd say both To the Gates.. and NeChrist weren't really part of an 'era' for NM and are more like stand alone albums. Either way, it's definitely odd for a band to start out great, get somewhat mediocre in the middle and rule again later on haha.

I recently gave all of their three newest albums a listen (from NeChrist on) and I can see where you're coming from. NeChrist is something of a disaster and, apart from very slight resemblances to both the album preceding it and the one following it, does indeed stand alone. There are some good tracks but the overall effort is pitiful. Weltanschauung was definitely better than what I'd remembered so I guess I'll have to put it as an advanced transition album, about 75% closer to its successor than to NeChrist. My opinion on Voice of Steel hasn't really changed, although it may have been slightly tempered (from genius to very, very good/great). I should be writing some reviews soon.

I'll be doing more bands' careers soon, most likely Old Man's Child, Samael or Summoning. Perhaps Hypocrisy.

I'd really like to read those. Thought about doing one for Catamenia, which is simple and straightforward. All those albums and surprisingly little variation at the core.

someone do moonsorrow

Ok, I will, and you should go ahead and do Catamenia.

I'll do what is quite possibly my favorite band in the world, or very close to that: Hypocrisy.

Theirs is a career which is a bit hard to divide into well-defined groups, save perhaps the more obvious beginning, but I’ll try. Said beginning consists of the (1) Magnus "Masse" Bromberg era, so named because their vocalist, who’d later go on to be in Dark Funeral as Emperor Magus Caligula, defines this period vocally and separates it from Hypocrisy’s future releases. His vocals are considerably deeper and more stereotypical of the classic “death metal sound” which the releases of this phase, namely the first two albums and the Pleasure of Molestation EP, all cling to, albeit with a special Hypocrisy sound. This sound consists, especially on Osculum Obscenum, of a much darker atmosphere, reminiscent of black metal more a lot more than of classic death. These albums are possibly the hardest to get into but immensely worth it once one does, as they’re massive slabs of death metal capable of running with the best of them.

After that period which cemented Hypocrisy’s place as a high-quality band within the world of extreme metal comes the true evolution towards the band of today. This period can be defined as (2) second half of the band’s “first career” era, an admittedly complicated appellation derived from the fact that the last album in this phase, The Final Chapter, was destined to be their last album so Peter Tägtgren could go on focusing exclusively on his duties as a produced. Luckily ending Hypocrisy then wasn’t his destiny but the historical separation still persists, both from the The Final Chapter’s name and from the considerably different musical direction taken as the project continued. This period, running from The Fourth Dimension to aforementioned “final” album consists of a much more atmospheric take on death metal, with considerable keyboard usage and melody inserted almost everywhere. This is very different from the sound achieved by the contemporaneous Gothenburg scene of melodic death metal, Hypocrisy retaining a much harsher sound from their early days despite the occasional clean-sung ballad such as Slippin’ Away. This period also sees Peter Tägtgren’s compositional genius asserting itself in the category which he champions: writing highly atmospheric, mid-to-slow-paced songs. Roswell 47 is probably the most well-known and appreciated, but Apocalypse, The Fourth Dimension, The Final Chapter and Request Denied are all notable in this regard, as are several others which I’m probably forgetting at the moment.

The third era can arguably be called the (3) continuation era, as the band was continued and the musical direction of the previous phase evolved in a relatively natural, if uneven, way. I say uneven because the albums here are quite varied in both nature and quality. Situated here are the four albums ranging from the self-titled all the way to The Arrival. The S/T sees the band reach the peak of their atmospheric sound, so atmospheric in fact that the death metal started to wear a bit thin by here. That didn’t stop the album from being excellent but it was probably realized that the sound achieved was a ceiling of sorts and that they’d have to head elsewhere. This elsewhere is the cause behind the unevenness of this whole period, starting with Into the Abyss, a much harsher album taking more elements from their death metal phase and basically being a throwback to the most extreme portions of the previous phase. Songs like Fire in the Sky fit in perfectly with the previously mentioned list of slow-paced masterpieces, while other parts of the album espouse a sound which is quite hard to get into, a bit abrasive really. This facet of their sound exploded on the following album, Catch 22, which saw some mild modern metal (not quite nu-metal but a bit too close for my tastes) influences on a select number of songs while most were kept at Hypocrisy’s usual level of quality (the recent re-mixing of the album didn’t really entail much of a change in its sound, it remained at a similar level of quality). The Arrival sees a more toned-down evolution, this time a bit closer to Gothenburg metal.

The final phase is what can be called the (4) death metal revival phase. It consists of the two newest albums, Virus and A Taste of Extreme Divinity. The major changes here are a much more intense and heavy sound (listen to Warpath) while abandoning the extraterrestrial-themed lyrics of the previous two phases in favour of a more classic death metal approach (death, gore, violence, war, that sort of thing). The previously stable three-man line-up changed when Lars Szöke, their very good but sadly a bit stagnating towards his stint’s end drummer, left and was replaced by Immortal’s beast Horgh, one of Scandinavia’s best drummers and a guy who pumped new life and intensity into Hypocrisy’s sound through his work. They seem to have a good thing going here, with a slight advantage of quality going to the excellent Virus, so I can safely say that their future looks very bright right now.

Look forward to your review. I can't stop listening to their latest and it may be their best yet.

Celtic Frost (although they aren't my favorite, I choosed them cause of their radicall changes)

84'-85'

Thrash pretty much, influenced by Slayer or Venom. "Morbid Tales" had some influence on the death and black metal.

85'-87'

Black/thrash, "To Mega Therion" what can I say, its blacker while it remains thrash.

87'-88'

"'Pandemonium"- avant-garde, prog thrash

88'- 90'

"Cold Lake"- Celtic' is softning, heavy at best

90'-93'

This is thiny thrash era which is followed by a break up

2001 - after

"Monotheist" - Doom/black/gothic album, which kind of dissapointed me, I have to say

Metallica

80s - thrash
90s- heavy
2000s - nu-heavy-thrash, I can't explain it really...

"Evolution", more like "Devolution"

Technically you could have continued with Tryptikon as well, seeing as how they're the spiritual successor to CF.

Sorry, didn't know that,

excuse me for my non-knowing.

Um... it's okay? I barely know about CF myself but if you're a fan you should check that band and new album out since most CF fans seem to swear by it.

Savatage is somewhat of a strange band. Starting out with the power metal classic Sirens, they evolved over time into something that resembled little of that album. Riffs where still there, if not as heavy, but they were often accompanied by symphonic elements that gradually became more and more prominent.

Power metal era (Sirens-Power of the Night): Taking the metal scene by storm in 1983, brothers Criss (on guitars) and Jon (on vocals), with assistance from Doc Wacholz on drums and Keith Collins on bass, release the heavy Sirens. One of the first USPM albums, it contains thick riffing and thumping basslines with frantic singing. No frills at all save for the closing ballad "Out on the Streets," it would remain their best for the next 4 years and three releases. Dungeons... is a continuation of the sound found on Sirens. As an EP, it doesn't contain the same amount of songs, but it's almost as fun.

Power of the Night is a very strange release. It foreshadows the supposed terror that would follow next year, but at the same time contains some excellent songs. The title tracks, Warriors and Washed Out are some great rockers that get the blood pumping, but beware the more commercial numbers. In the Dream isn't too bad, but Hard for Love is terrible. It sounds like a bad Van Halen leftover that was found in the garbage. The other songs have some great riffing, but some of lyrics are a bit out there. Up next is the Cold Lake of Savatage's discography...

Hard rock/Glam (Fight for the Rock): Jon Oliva was apparently going to be used as a songwriter for other, more commercial artists on Savatage's label and as so began to write poppier material. The label apparently did a turnaround and demanded that Savatage perform the material. Oliva was a bit naive and agreed to it which led to this mess. While I labeled it glam, it was glam in the sense of Celtic Frost's Cold Lake and not in the Poison pop trash. The riffs were there, they were just were rather uninspired and recycled. Criss is a major redeemer in this, saving a lot of songs with his crushing tone and solos. The album is pretty much half bad/half decent. The ballads are pretty much terrible and they take up a large portion of the album. The harder rocking numbers are worth at least a listen. Regardless, the band was hurt by the inconsistency and the band decided to cut the bullshit and get serious.

2nd power metal (Hall of the Mountain King-Gutter Ballet): Often pointed to as their crowning achievement, it really does deserve all the accolades it receives. Heavy and epic, the album is a blast to listen to. Most of the album is mid/fast paced with no real outright thrashers. This is actually a positive as the album feels like Godzilla stomping all over Tokyo, destroying all in it's path. Even the somewhat obligatory ballad is good. After this defining work of art, Savatage decided to in another direction.

Gutter Ballet is a transitional album, with some pieces featuring what is to come and others being reminiscent of the prior album. Hounds, the title track and When the Crowds are gone sound like they could come off the Streets album while the Unholy and She's In Love have HotMK written all over.

Progressive metal/rock (Streets-Edge of Thorns): After Gutter Ballet's release, the band decided to release a concept album that fully embraced the symphonic elements introduced on GB. Elton John-like piano ballads pop up with the high-octane metal thrillers being severely toned down. This album seems to be a point of contention. Many enjoy its more "sophisticated" atmosphere while others deride it for being rather limp wristed. I enjoy it even if it has some filler that needed to be cut out. I'd probably hate it in its orginal form: a two disc fully conceptual work with skits in between songs like the one in Jesus Saves.

Jon Oliva leaves the band's full time line-up after this album. Citing fatigue, he hires the talented Zak Stevens to front the band in his absence. What follows is one of the best works in Savatage's catalogue. Edge of Thorns proves that teh band could continue without Jon fronting the band. Criss is the best part of the album, filling the songs with excellent riffs and ripping solos. Stevens is the second best, shrieking and crooning through13 excellent songs, he really earns his spot. One of my favorite parts of the album occurs near the end of the second track. Criss is unleashing a powerful solo and near the end of it, Zak starts screaming his heart out while Criss wails away in the background. This sadly would the last album Criss would appear on before his untimely death.

Progressive metal/rock w/o Criss: I honestly couldn't get too much into the band after his death. Three albums followed, all of varying quality. Handful of Rain should have been the last as its a fairly touching tribute to Jon's dead brother. He performs all instruments except for lead guitar and vocals. Dead Winter Dead is trash. The Wake of Magellan is a decent album that has its moments. Poets and Madmen is probably the best as far post-Criss albums go. Jon returns to front the band and they release their strongest material in 8 years. After this point the band ceases to be as focus is put on TSO full-time.

How is Savatage power metal at all? When I hear Sirens, I hear raw, dirty, awesome speed metal, nothing power at all. And Hall Of The Mountain King is basically the same but a bit more varied. Seriously what is power metal about their sound?

The riffs. Sirens isn't as fast as most speed metal really. It's just those fucking awesome riffs that class their sound as Power Metal...although I call them Heavy Metal sometimes too, depending on whatever I feel like saying.

Either way, Criss was the best thing about the band, and after he died there wasn't much more worth listening to there...but at least it was better than the hugely awful Streets that gets fellated around here for some reason I don't get. Seriously, that shit is whack.

I wouldn't call "Dead Winter Dead" trash. Yes its a bit mediocre, but there's a nice atmosphere in there. Plus, for better or worse, that album gave birth to The Trans-Siberian Orchestra.

Savatge is an intersting band, however you're right, I don't get why people constantly put speed' with power', like, Blind Guardian's "Battalions of Fear"; its always "given" the power element which doesn't exist there at all! Same here with Savatage.

Speed is fast, more related to thrash.

Yeah Streets actually got me laughing because how could this actually become their most popular album? And "Believe" kind of cemented the idea in my head that Savatage simply can't do ballads(well sometimes they'll do a good one, but rarely).

Yeah Sirens isn't as fast, other then a few tracks, so I guess it's kind of a heavy/speed mix but of course a great one. Also it seems no one can really agree on the post Criss era, and I have mixed feelings too(they were mostly pretty good, but only P&M really stood out to me).

I love seeing how clear the distinction is among other people too.

It's really good indeed but the two main demos still have it beat.

On another subject, someone (perhaps Ozzy?) should do an overview of W.A.S.P. I'd do one myself but I only have five albums (which I all either like a lot or adore) so there's quite a bit of their career which I'm oblivious to.

FierceBlackandWicked already did a WASP overview on the first page. I would have been more than happy to do one myself, but I'm backed up by school and military duty again this weekend. Yeah WASP went through a lot of changes before settling on straightforward heavy metal again.