Checking Levels
We finally are doing another showcase! Doesn’t anybody remember those? Well, either way, we have treat for you this week amongst three more releases and our commentary on Decibel’s Top 40 list that we teased last week.
Reviews:
Implore – Subjugate (Century Media)
Midnight – Sweet Death and Ecstasy (Hell’s Headbangers)
Oblivion – The Path Towards… (Unique Leader)
(Side)Showcase: American Standards
Implore – Subjugate
Midnight – Sweet Death and Ecstasy
Oblivion – The Path Towards…
(Side)Showcase:
American Standards – Anti-Melody
The Sideshow Podcast 
I checked out Axl’s list. I can say that there is one album on it that will be on my list. The truth is that I’ve mostly stopped reading metal sucks because of stuff like Axl’s list. I find myself generally in more agreement with Rob and Frank at Metal Injection as opposed to Vince and Axl at Metal Sucks.
Also, it seems like Power Trip is getting a lot of praise in these early year end lists and I’m not sure why.
I know you’ve mentioned it before that you find the end of year lists a bit of a chore, but I happen to enjoy compiling mine. I always find it to be a true test of an album to put it aside for a while then come back to it to find out if it still holds up. If I still like an album months (or years) after first enjoying it, then to me it has proven itself to be a great album.
There is a certain pleasure in that, I will agree. It’s the sheer number of albums and even competing with my own ratings I find to be more tiring. For instance, I have the latest Benighted album a 5. I can probably still support that, but I have definitely not gone back to it in a few months because of favoring other the albums. So now I have to figure out where it will ultimately fall in my top 20. Then we also have to nitpick between spots, and I get so caught up in the placements, I drive myself nuts. Lol.
So I guess some of it is self-inflicted pain. Ha ha. I recognize that. But we can be a review show and not do this.
If you need to feel better Brian just got look at Axl’s list and you’ll realize we can’t possibly do worse!
I’ve been listening to Spirit Adrift lately. I’ve been hoping it would turn out to be this year’s version of Khemmis, but it’s not quite as good as Khemmis. There’s also a definite Baroness quality to the vocals in Spirit Adrift.
The other band that intrigues me from Decibel’s list is Cormorant. I’m not sure when I’ll have time to get to listen to them (maybe January) but they seem like a band that is up my alley.
I have tried Cormorant a few times as I like the name and aesthetic, but I have not really connected to them. If you dig the new one, let me know and I’ll check it out. -n
BTW, I’m currently listening to a selection of 2017 albums to review them in preparation of my year end list. Start doing your homework! At this point I think I have it narrowed down to about 12 albums, which I plan on pairing down to a top 10, but the order is still in question. There will definitely be a few albums on my list that you haven’t listened to, and I suspect we are going to have very little overlap this year.
We’ll have to check out those bands on your list for the beginning of 2018. And we have – begrudgingly – started doing our EOY homework. Never have liked this part, and probably never will. Ha ha – Brian