Tropes, Clichés, metal group think

[Pedrito]

Perfectly reasonable thing to say. It was a massive album.

[mugz]

...

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I agree about negative identity stuff back in the day with metal fans, but if you were directing it specifically at me which maybe you weren't

Nope, not directed specifically at anyone here. Just always found it a bit sad when people held themselves in a kind of "I'm cool because of what I don't like, and if you like it you're pathetic" manner. There's a rake of bands who are usual suspect targets of the behavior.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

And Beneath The Remains is Sepultura's most enduring album. Roots aged badly, but in terms of them going for commercial appeal with it, I was never totally sold on that being the case. Brazil is such an open society culturally that I don't think the more typically "western" mode of dividing pop from metal holds there. Was their decision to incorporate more of their indigenous influences really so different to Irish metal bands who have done the same with folk? What is disparaged simply because it gets the label "tribal", again, it just doesn't make sense in the same way when you know the street music culture there is built around those rhythmic styles being an inherent part of life, with spontaneous community percussion jams, etc. Still though, when I listen to it now, it just doesn't connect, and Chaos, like Arise, is front loaded and then patchy. Beneath The Remains is a solid monument from start to finish. To these admittedly very white ears anyway.

[mugz]

...

[Ducky]

Roots is a lot of things, but a commercial grab ain't one of them. It's absolutely sprawling and there's no one fixed style to any of it.

I loved it when I was younger precisely because it was just a smorgasbord of sounds. Might root (heh) it out over the weekend and see how I feel about it all this time later.

[mugz]

...

[open face surgery]

Ya, very few redeeming factors about Roots. Artwork is indeed beautiful. More or less love everything up to that point.

I've gone down the CoF nostalgia route this morning. Vempire on now. Loved them until I saw them at Tattoo the Planet and just couldn't listen to them after that.

[Trev]

I got killed for this before but I'll say it again, Chaos AD is their best album.  Closely followed by Arise.

I'd go with that too, Chaos was the first album I got from them so that's always going to be a factor in my favouritism

I think a big problem I have with Roots is that it's just far too long, there's absolutely no need for 16 songs and over an hour long, could easily have trimmed a load off. I'd have kept all the tribal/acoustic songs though, spread them out a bit more, similar to the European metal bands that have folk style interludes, like BSC said

[Trev]

Back to the original topic, I ignored black metal for years because of the cliche that it the recording quality is so shit its near unlistenable. The upside of that is when I did end up hearing some stuff I liked there was a whole new genre to explore

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

well Brazil is a cultural and genetic stew, so 'whiteness' isn't a barrier to anything

That was a joke...


There are good, even great songs, later into Chaos and Arise, but there are also some non-events. Personally, I don't find this to be the case with Beneath the Remains.

[Pedrito]

It's hard to beat the Heart of Darkeness/jungle fever of Beneath the Remains. Just an utterly savage album from start to finish. Relentless. Great points above about Roots. I think too often we get stuck in this 'commercialising' idea. Seps were already massive. If anything Roots alienated a lot of their fanbase. Must give it another listen.

[Pedrito]

Ok another cliche that is probably the greatest metal cliché of all is the Justice mix. Now, I'm not saying the mix doesn't exist or it's not completely different. What I would say, again, is that before I knew anything about mixes or what a bass guitar does, or even having the hearing capability to distinguish these things, the album just sounded amazing to me.

The thought did cross my mind that maybe I'm just nostalgic and harkening for the sounds of my youth but I don't think so. If it wasn't talked about so endlessly in reviews and retrospective articles, I would wager half the people who own the album would never have noticed. But when everything you read begins by talking about the mix, then it spawns a monster of its own.

Or maybe I'm talking shite? Still sounds perfect to me though.

[Blackout]

Justice is my favourite album so I agree.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

The only problem I have with Justice is it's the first album where Hetfield starts "cool" drawling the vocals here and there. If there's a sin that ludicrous band in shades photo hints at, it's that rather than an unusual mix, which never took away from my enjoyment of it.