Tropes, Clichés, metal group think

[astfgyl]

I'm not even sticking up for him here, just folding the thread back on itself.

I have noticed that mentality going right back through the old forum as well, where newer users feel more freedom to slate the shit out of others, once it has been pre-approved, by someone with a high post count breaking the ice for them. So it's on-topic in a way and certainly not limited to this forum either. It happens everywhere.

For what it's worth, I don't think anyone does themselves any favours either by repeating the exact same schtick in every thread, no matter what it may entail.

He's threatening people's lives and including McLove's family in the post ffs. Disgusting behaviour. This thread started out fine and was hijacked for pages with constant self-referential posts.

I didn't see that, was that one of the deleted posts?

[Eoin McLove]

Fuck it, I'm putting it down to drunken retardation (If not, then egg on my corpse!). Let's rer-rail this topic because it's an interesting discussion.

[astfgyl]

Yeah, fuck it let's get back on track.

I have a bit of an issue at times with how bands present themselves, which puts me right off trying them out at all. One in particular that I remember was coming across a band called Abominable Yeti and their promo pic was the 2 of them sitting propped up against a stack of Orange cabs in full denims with 70's style long hair and beards, and that coupled with the gushing praise of the article immediately put me off listening to any of it. Not saying I missed out there either, and I'm fairly confident I didn't but there have been loads of things over the years like that where praise for something rather than it being vilified has given me preconceptions

[Ducky]

I come here (as does everyone else I assume) for a bit of shite talk about metal and other topics, yeah the odd time it gets heated, but what Mugz said to McLove was some genuinely nasty shit.

Someone threatening the lives of a posters missus and sprog isn't on.

[Ducky]

I've only been posting on here a short time, bit I find a thread about the swaying of opinions on an internet form a bit wierd. If I have to point out why...... Just to piss everyone off my favourite sepultura album is nation. I always loved everything sepultura did, but nation was a positive but still aggressive album when every other metal album was trying to be Grimm as fuck, and I welcomed the warm vibe. Still do.

*Kill me now*

I had this jammed in my Walkman when I was at college. Stuck it on yesterday as part of my Seps buzz (I got through almost their entire discography) and while it wouldn't be my favourite, I think there's merit to it the same way Roots has - it's a sprawl of different vibes and sounds (not all hit the mark).

It was also my introduction to Bauhaus via the cover of Bela Lugosi's Dead, so there's always that 

[astfgyl]

I come here (as does everyone else I assume) for a bit of shite talk about metal and other topics, yeah the odd time it gets heated, but what Mugz said to McLove was some genuinely nasty shit.

Someone threatening the lives of a posters missus and sprog isn't on.

No, it certainly isn't on and I wouldn't condone it in any way either. I'd liken the craic around here to the snooker mentality of playing the balls on the table rather than the opponent in the chair. Like, disagree with the point all day long, but don't make it personal. Bit of verbal jousting no bother. I've always liked round here how lads can disagree completely on one thread and find common cause on another.

Emperor is another band I hated on sight and the effusive praise for them kept me away for years until I had to admit after actually listening to them that they were indeed great.

Regarding Nation, I really tried to like it after spending 20 quid on it back in the day but all of the songs left me feeling very flat. I did listen to it rakes of times though. The real, unarguable, absolute stinker in the collection is Roorback though. Pure unremitting shite from start to finish.

A-Lex doesn't get much of a mention anywhere either, but I really enjoyed that one.

[Pedrito]

Max Cavalera on Roots: "In a way, I preferred the not-so-successful side of being in a band," he shrugs. "Everything just got too big. It was weird, because we became this trend and there was something wrong about that. We were a metal band, we're supposed to be black sheep! There are people who like it, but everyone else is supposed to hate it. When everyone likes it, there's something wrong, either with us or with the world! Ha ha ha! So I didn't enjoy the Roots thing so much. It's weird to me now because I look back and I think about how I split from the band at that time, right after Roots."

And herein, I find, lies a lot of the problem. Artists often self criticize, they can't handle this new 'space' that they're in, they're often the worst people to judge their own mysic. Kurt Cobain is another example. Was he doing much different to what he had already done? Well to the untrained ear, no. And to the trained ear, yes and no. And yet these are a type of psychological response to something or a response based on perceptions, which has nothing to do with the reason they created the album in the first place. You read Seps talking about recording Itsarí with the native tribe and thir energy and enthusiasm jumps off the page. It's only when they encounter this new-found fame and appreciation and begin to be vaunted on a more mainstream level that it all becomes an issue for Max in particular. So my readibg of that would go back to this idea of 'group think', and self disciplining.

Bathory another example of a band who had to rein in certain traits that they exhibited. So it raises questions about how much control any band has over their material. Is it all a one way street or are we all open to this 'feedback loop'? I suspect even the bedroom BM lads were open to it at the end of the day.

[astfgyl]

Ah i'd say it gets in on everyone, whether they embrace it or rail against it, it still gets in. Roots probably was a missed opportunity for Sepultura in the regard you mention it though. They tried to straddle the line between doing something entirely new for them and also keeping something for their fanbase at the time. I used to think it was brilliant but the last couple of times I put it on, I didn't make it all the way through. Ross Robinson and his woeful "production" has a lot to do with that as well though.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

youre entirely welcome to see if you feel like being 'witty' in person. id actually be delighted to orphan your kid.

One of the only posts left intact! Bearing in mind that the thread isn't only about metal group think but also metal tropes, the conceptual conflict of how to combine a claim to intellectual superiority with praise of brute force, without the latter coming across as a sign of failure of the former, that one's a recurring doozy!

[Ducky]

I love Robinson's production, you can hear everything correctly, the drums are fucking huge.

He's an interesting one for this thread, I've always heard how he makes band's sound polished and blah blah blah. Isn't sounding polished the goal of getting him in as a producer?

I remember someone I knew complaining that ATD-I's 'Relationship of Command' was clean-sounding. Yeah, they're a moderately successful commercial band, this is their breakthrough record and the one that you first heard... so job done?

[Emphyrio]

Ya, the right production allows the individual elements have their own clear space. The production shouldn't be thin for most bands in metal. Shades of God is a good example, those songs would have a lot more heft even with Icon's production.

And McLove's suggestion yesterday, Decoryah. Superb music and vocals, lots of different elements but they all blend in together way too much, imo, obviously.

[astfgyl]

Can't get in on Robinson's production at all. I think it sucks all the bite and power from the guitars and his high end is often muddy, too. I'll admit I haven't listened to Relationship of Command ever so I dunno about that one. A fine example of his terrible production is the Dead Cross album. Very bad on that one.

youre entirely welcome to see if you feel like being 'witty' in person. id actually be delighted to orphan your kid.

One of the only posts left intact! Bearing in mind that the thread isn't only about metal group think but also metal tropes, the conceptual conflict of how to combine intellectual superiority with praise of brute force without the latter coming across as a sign of failure of the former, that one's a recurring doozy!

Personally calling out lads on a forum has always been puerile. Leather Mike springs to mind here as well. He got a fair bit of stick for that at times.

[Eoin McLove]

Regarding production (and I could be veering off topic here) I know a lot of people roll their eyes at the 'demos are the best' attitudes among certain metalheads, but I'm somewhere in the middle on this debate. I love the gestation phase of a lot of early black and doom bands in particular. Ulver are a brilliant example of perfectly straddling both worlds. The 'Vargnatt' demo is so unpolished with levels kind of flying all over the gaff and a brutish combination of jarring elements. It really demands the listener to come and meet it on its own terms. No doubt for some it's an unlistenable mess but for me it's a glorious mess and I'll be keeping it in mind with my own future recordings.  More wonk, please! At the same time their debut, 'Bergtatt', shows how all of those disparate elements can be brought together in a seamless way and it sounds great for that, too. There's more than one way to skin a cat, is the upshot, and from my standpoint a lot of the mischief and mayhem seems to have been washed out of the black and doom scenes in favour of a slick, professional (surely an oxymoron) finish. When executed well, that's great, but it has made a lot of bands sound interchangeable to me. It's one of the main reasons I'm spending so much more time digging into older stuff that I overlooked.  That early stage in extreme metal yielded so many exciting,  unorthodox results due in massive part to naivety, inexperience and ineptitude- the holy trinity of quality extreme metal!

[Eoin McLove]

Also, 'Relationship of Command' has a savage production. I haven't listened to it in years but I've been chatting about it a bit lately with a lad in work.  Must fire it on the car.

[Emphyrio]

it has made a lot of bands sound interchangeable to me.

That's the potential trade off, I guess but my way of looking at it then would be that the songs need to stand on their own merit. But ya, you have a point.