I dont have anything to prove fam. I did learn most of wings of predation back in the day.

Album Rating: 5.0

"just some weird chords"



Huhhhh?!!!! Ok, Smok is getting creative with all these new accounts...



"Of course Smok hates my favorite era of classical composition lol. I worship at the altar of Stravinsky, Bartok, Ives, Berg, Ligeti, Ornstein, etc. Far more interesting and subversive than the likes of Pagini, Vivaldi, Bach, all that pop shit"



A man of culture I see. Pretty good taste my friend. I find both eras just as good and enjoyable but if I was to live for the rest of my life with only one pick I would go with 20th century composers.

Nah im not saying this is a bad album or anything but to pretend this is anywhere near an orchestral piece is funny.

Album Rating: 5.0

Compositionally speaking it's quite literally like an orchestral piece of music. Album had people crazy back in the day getting the tabs right (still not a single complete tab on the internet despite the cult status of the band/album), the drummer was rumoured to be a machine... This is one of the most incredible pieces of music ever conceived in the metal realm. No traditional song structures, just transcedental prose channeled into music.

Album Rating: 4.5

This is still the most interesting of the all the dissonant black and death metal bands and it's not really that close. Ulcerate and imperial triumphant are probably the closest but I'd still put deathspell significantly over both in terms of interesting songwriting

Album Rating: 4.5

yeah its funny when i see people ask for reccomendations similar to deathspell on reddit



sorry fam but good luck finding anything close

Album Rating: 5.0

Nothing close. The closest thing in terms of songwriting/composition I've heard so far is Imperial Triumphant, which are freaking awesome and one of my fav black metal acts currently, but they just can't touch what DsO accomplished from 2005 to 2010. That run of albums and EPs is so incredible and otherwordly I just get wordless when thinking about it.

", Bach, all that pop shit"

wtf

Album Rating: 5.0

hahaha! yeah, that was quite a trigger bait

Frost you do realize that orchestral pieces have more instruments than just guitar, bass and drums? You know how harmony works? Relationship between chords and scales? In an orchestral piece you can have more melodies than with just two melodic instruments...

Album Rating: 5.0

Well it depends on what kind of orchestra we'are talking about. Deathspell Omega's way of recording is more akin to chamber music (although production wise they go BIG and WIDE, almost cathedral like), which technically still counts as orchestral music, just with a smaller size and less voices. Still, if you really listen to this album you'll be surprised to find way more than just guitars, bass and drums. Listen closely and you'll see the influence of 20th classical composers in those eerie, out of tune, piano sections, human choruses in the background (the female parts may go unnoticed but play a huge role) and atmospheric passages. I once recommended this album to a classical music composer and he was so intrigued by the way all the elements were combined behind the curtain of chaos and noise he was completely overblown. No wonder Luc Lemay from Gorguts (who is trained in classical music composition aswell) speaks wonders of DsO's approach to black metal.



Maudlin of the well and Kayo Dot are both good examples too of this chamber music approach to metal. Give them a go if you haven't. Of course you got bands like Haggard and stuff like that but DsO just opened the gates of something completely different.

Album Rating: 4.0

sputnik comment sections are where i go to for real conversations on religion and musical theory

Album Rating: 5.0

The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election is so freaking incredible man... Jeez... This album man... Better than sex, and I really mean it. It feels/is so out of this world, what a masterpiece!!!

DsO were really groundbreaking dude. I remember reading an interview Lord Worm of Cryptopsy did, talking about this band and I decided to give them a listen. I believe, like you, that Fas Ite was a masterpiece at the time. To this day i remember most tracks on this album due to how much I liked it. When I was studying music, I took an arrangement class and I did well but not as well as other students. However, we did arrangements like what a jazz band would do. Sometimes our homeworks were just with 4 leading voices and it is probably the hardest thing I have done in my life. What I am trying to get at is: what makes something difficult. Being able to figure out by ear what it is they are playing, or being to learn something through tabs. Im sure if DsO tabs did exist, people wouldn't find it hard to play. Thats not a knock on the band or their craft, it is just my perception.

Album Rating: 5.0

So good to hear someone who studies music talking about this stuff. Loved your post man. About the tabs and the difficulty, Hasjarl is a pretty accurate and tricky guitar player and his riffs are deceivingly hard to play. It was rumoured he was employing hybrid picking in many songs and I'm still convinced he does but the only live footage of them show he is a very precise and "jazzy" guitar player: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BT92vfE8qQ&t=12s



The drummer is simply stunning and the bass player (who never gets any praise) is also a beast.

This piano + drums cover of The Repellent Scars of Abandon & Election is one of my fav videos of all time: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1-M3aFaWGY It also clearly shows the Penderecki influence!



I remember reading somewhere that Hasjarl would compose his music on acoustic guitar and piano first to then convert it to what we hear. That's something Aaron Turner from Isis did too iirc. Both geniuses of music in my book.

Glad to see ISIS get some praise from a black metal fan. When I was learning Wings of Predation, it was difficult. There was only 1 cover on YT and even that guy could not figure it out completely, so kudos to this bands guitarrist. Nowadays I spend my time learning Archspire songs and writing music, while taking some sound engineering classes as well. Im also looking for a job.

Back to theory. You know how some people in the music world say if you play jazz you can play anything? Thats not exactly the case. However, i can pretty easily identify a Major vs Minor 251 progression, which many people can in that world. Is the minor 251 harder than the major 251? No. Does it sound more jazz like and such? Yes. No one scale or chord is harder than the other. Its more about what we are used to. Im glad you didnt take the comment the wrong way g. Have a nice day.

Album Rating: 5.0

Archspire is S tier songwriting too dude! Nice name drop. Have a nice day too dawg

Album Rating: 5.0

Ultimate guitar has some tabs that are pretty much on the nose and some that are off in parts simply because it’s near impossible to tell in some sections of the really chaotic albums like this and Synarchy. But there are tabs out there, I have them all on my computer. I kinda hate the appeal to academia when trying to validate a musical opinion but I was a music minor in college, and all around band nerd from 6th grade on. When we’re talking about sheer appreciation of songcraft, these guys have the “thing” in spades. Like, imagine playing some of these tracks in one go, unified with a band and accurate. I’m more drawn to music like this because the technicality is much more subtle and in service of the song rather than sounding like “Hey y’all, look how fast and busy I can make this riff!”

Yeah man I agree with alot of what you are saying and kudos on your studies as well. I was kinda trolling for the most part since this is sputnik and all. Then I felt like turning it into a real conversation. Im more into atmo black and dsbm than I am this brand of black metal. Stuff like Sadness, Evilfeast, Paysage d'hiver is where its at for me. I dont really care for the whole metaphysical satanism thing either that this band does. Back in the day this was a 5 for me. Nowadays my music taste has changed so I dont really jam this stuff anymore. I would put it at a 3.5, great but not my thing. I listen to stuff on the more technical side nowadays but Leave by Sadness is 5/5 for me and that album is by no means technical. Technical doesnt necessarily mean good but let's be real here this isn't as complex as Requiem by Mozart or smth

Album Rating: 5.0

I mean, I was addicted to tech shit when I was really getting into metal in my high school years. Was getting into djent, and hyper deathcore like Beneath the Massacre and tech death and all that around the same time. Still love busy ass, hard-to-play stuff in the right context, but I can't help but feel that music like Archspire is a little cheesy for me now. As I've gotten older, I've had a punk rock renaissance, started becoming so much more open to softer guitar music like folk, classic country, americana, and indie rock. Now I just feel like good songs are good songs. It's not about the technicality but the content of what's there. A lot of the most classic songs across genres have relatively simple melodies or motifs that stick in your head forever. And after getting into noise music and weirdo guitar stuff like Sonic Youth, Unwound, Women, early Preoccupations, etc, I've become more of a fan of really cool/challenging textures and far-out chord progressions over the amount of notes. Jazz is so cool cause it often has both, interesting tweaks on scales and the like. My thing with these guys is that they have always had those lovely textures I seek, they really move me like few bands ever have, period. It's really all valid at the end of the day, though.