Fuck That Noise
One of these albums was so, uh, unpleasant that it spawned the title of the episode. Fortunately, the rest of the show makes up for that album, but holy hell was that one bad. Stop trying to guess which album I am referring to and just listen already.
Reviews:
Meth. – Mother of Red Light (Prosthetic)
Crypt Sermon – The Ruins of Fading Light (Dark Descent)
Snow Burial – Ostrava (Prosthetic)
R is for
Railgun
Meth. – Mother Of Red Light
Crypt Sermon – The Ruins Of Fading Light
Snow Burial – Ostrava
ABC’s of 2019:
Railgun
The Sideshow Podcast 
Regarding Crypt Sermon and Doom metal, I’m with you on the confusion as to why they are considered doom. I have way more thoughts and opinions on the matter that a normal person should, mostly because I have really become enamored with the whole sub-genre thing as it relates to metal, as I think that the sub-genres show the diversity of metal and are one of the things that makes metal so interesting and unique.
First are the sources for metal genres. You mentioned the most widely accepted source: the Metal Archives aka Encyclopedia Metallum aka Metallum. This is an invaluable source that has by far the most detailed and reliable information when it comes to genre tags. However, Metallum can be a bit too detailed. Is Epic Doom metal different from Doom? Is Technical Brutal Death metal that much different than Technical Death metal? I’ve come to discover another source that I go to frequently for similar types of information. That source is Rate Your Music aka RateYourMusic.com aka RYM. In addition to very useful album rankings both by band and by genre, their genre tags are very useful and a touch more high level than Metallum.
Getting back to Crypt Sermon, RYM lists them as both Traditional Doom metal and Doom metal. What’s the difference? Not all that much, but the easiest way to distinguish the two genres is by the bands in them. Traditional Doom consists of Black Sabbath, Pentagram, and Candlemass. Doom metal consists of My Dying Bride, Cathedral, and Electric Wizard. I’d certainly say that Crypt Sermon falls more into the Traditional Doom category.
As a side note, I believe it was Nick who mentioned Crypt Sermon as being metal with a capital “M”. Another way to describe that sub-genre is simply “heavy metal.” That means the entirety of the music that we listen to falls under the umbrella of metal (not heavy metal, just “metal”). Black Sabbath is metal, Iron Maiden is metal, Cannibal Corpse is metal, Opeth is metal. Mayhem is metal. Machine Head is metal, Nails is metal. You get the point. Using the adjective “heavy” to describe metal refers specifically to those bands that you refer to as metal with a capital M. Those older bands being ones such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Dio, and Accept. Newer bands which follow that tradition that fit into the sub-genre of heavy metal would be those such as Battle Beast, Visigoth, Slough Feg and one you mentioned on the podcast: Dawnbringer. This distinction between metal and heavy metal might be considered a technicality, but it fits with our generally accepted system of using adjectives to describe our metal. Just as Cannibal Corpse is simply death metal and Mayhem is simply black metal, Judas Priest is simply heavy metal.
And finally, I know you guys have been away, but… Tool.
Brian here. You know I love me some genre tags, but i have been trying to cut back. You should see my iTunes…it’s too much. Sometimes tags are splitting hairs, and sometimes it is not worth the split. I do agree with your assessment of the Traditional Doom and Doom’s differentiation, and I too split it that way. I also tag Heavy Metal the way you describe, so that was refreshing to hear i am not the only one who does that. I agree it is a technicality, as the main umbrella, as you put it, is (or at least once was) Heavy Metal, but we’ve gotten to a point where we need to label this way.
That said…wouldn’t “Traditional Metal” be another way of labeling what you and I call Heavy Metal?
Also, yes, there can be a difference between Technical Death Metal and Brutal Death Metal. I know we have discussed this, that the term “Brutal” should be understood for Death Metal and almost seems redundant, but it’s need in the same way we distinguish between Heavy Metal and Metal, or Doom and Traditional Doom. Some Techdeath is of standard DM heaviness or gets a little to focused on the technical aspect and loses some of the pure heaviness of some of their peers. Some Death Metal bands become savagely heavy, more-so than the standards of say Cannibal Corpse. Yeah, you have Slam, but while all Slam is Brutal DM, not all Brutal DM is Slam Then there bands that are bands that have a foot in each and become Brutal Technical Death Metal (Cryptopsy, old NIle, Origin). Sure, the line can be thin/blurred sometimes, but sometimes you also know when you hear it.
Where my i have a problem in my iTunes is that so many bands now fit more than one tag, so i have Tag, Tag/Tag2, and Tag/Tag2/Tag3 and then some new band comes along and doesn’t fit right so i make up another,,,though i have been better at not doing that. I’ll have to look into RYM…maybe they will help me.
One other note on the genre “tags” is that even though I am big on the genres, I actually don’t tag them as such in my library. I get most of my music from Amazon, and their mp3s all stupidly have the genre tagged as “Hard Rock & Metal”. I do often change the tag, but I don’t get crazy, often just changing the tag to simply “Metal” or if something is really obviously in a single genre I will label it as something such as “Black Metal”.