Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Would you like the merlot or the cab today sir?

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Know them all very well. Great recs Memento m/



EDIT - APARENTLY THIS IS A THING - 10 000 COMMENTS!

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Happy milestone : )

Album Rating: 4.0

I do love round numbers divisible by 5.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

Glad you re a tool fan as well

Album Rating: 3.9

My dude, congratulations!!! this means you can never escape the site ;]

Album Rating: 3.0

Why would I waste my time baiting? What's the point on a music disc page, where we all have assholes, I mean opinions.

The first paragraph just reads angsty to me. It doesn't read like estrangement, it reads like anger. That's further driven home by name-dropping some artists and specifically employing a tone of ridicule when putting their perceived shortcomings under a microscope. It evokes a mindset of approaching the record immediately from a 'this versus that' perspective, and a 'this shit better than your shit' idea. The fact that this is how the review starts just emphasizes that idea. You don't need to put other things down to elevate what you're talking about. That's regrettable and unnecessary.

It's the same shit I see genre elitists do time and time again, and it's tiring as all hell. I'm convinced that nobody that actually loves music as a whole gives a shit about the comparison-rhetoric.

@Johnny, if this is not how it's meant, fair enough. Who am I to disbelieve you? It just read exactly like this to me. Maybe it helps you with writing, maybe it doesn't.

@MementoMori, of the positives I could attribute to this record (and there are a few), 'compositional dynamism' would never be one of them. Rather the opposite.

Album Rating: 4.0

@Zuzek Really? Generally Nero's sound revolves around oscillating between rhythmical motifs and more atmospheric passages, gorguts-esque tech-death swindles et cetera, moving seamlessly between, something they did on their debut, improved upon on their sophomore release and indulged in on this record once again.

Sure, some of the more atmospheric passages may linger around for somewhat too long, but that is no justification for calling Nero's compositional structures sterile and lacking dynamics. You must have been listening to a different record if you walked away with that assessment. Either that, or you just haven't been paying attetion. I'm not so sure.

Album Rating: 4.5

Great review. Absolutely amazing album. The "free form" songwriting was a great push to my mind locked in certain kind of stereotype how things should be done. And such push is always welcome and precious, especially these days.

Album Rating: 3.5 | Sound Off

@zuzek



To further this conversation. I don't agree with the 'genre hating' view you've picked up. The first example:

For a scene revered as the haven of all things extreme, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been struck by just how fucking boring so much metal manages to be.

Album Rating: 4.0

@Zuzek

Similarly to all genres, given the fact that, especially from an economic perspective, it is more profitable to just continually produce iterations of the same aesthetic, even metal is plagued by a certain trend towards homogenization: bands attempting to emulate a popular aesthetic and never moving beyond that point, because there is no financial incentive to do so and record labels realizing that appealing to an already established taste is more financially rewarding.

This phenomenon manifests itself more extremely within more commercially accepted genres such as pop and hip-hop, however metal music (or any more underground form of music for that matter) isn't exempt from this. Even genres such as progressive metal or post-metal (which Nero themselves draw from) are not entirely free of this problem; just look at the modern djent movement, or the amount of Neurosis clones lurking around in post-metal circles.

However, this doesn't necessarily entail there is no unique or idiosyncratic or interesting metal out there. Besides all of the bands which quite excellently emulate a given style or sound whilst adding their own twist, there are various more unique, transdisciplinary acts out there carving out their own sound. I haven't lost interest in the genre for this very reason. There are always at least a handful of amazing metal records released every year and a handful of new interesting acts stepping out of the limelight unexpectedly. I say this while admitting that most of my favourite metal records were released in the 2000's and the 1990's.

There are nonetheless still great underground acts out there, who play anything but boring music, especially given the fact that they often play with genres built upon dynamism, experimentation et cetera. I would certainly say Nero falls into that category, regardless of the fact that the interludes on this record are sometimes overly long. Your cynicism seems unfounded to me, as does your statement about metal being 'boring' all the time. You simply haven't been paying attention if that's your assessment, not to this record, and not to the underground rumblings of the metal world over the last decade in general.

Album Rating: 3.3

Finally gave this a few more listens. There' some great songs here, but there's just too much dead space.

Album Rating: 4.0

@Willie Those damn interludes and atmospheric intermezzos

Album Rating: 3.3

They just go for too long. Can't help it. Ha ha.

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

The best thing I heard in January, along with Terminal Agressor II

Album Rating: 4.0

@Willie It would be my main critique of the record. Derivae felt more immediate in that sense.

Album Rating: 3.3

^^ Agreed.

Album Rating: 4.0

@TheNoTrap Have you listened to the new Thy Catafalque record yet?

Album Rating: 4.0 | Sound Off

Sure, quite solid. I've been listening regularly for the past few weeks

Album Rating: 4.0

@TheNoTrap I thought it was more than solid. Then again, I do have a weakness for TQ anyway. Group's awesome.