Album Rating: 3.5

Yeah this is lit 🔥 regardless of any issues with the production / drums. Nice balance between pummelling heaviness, use of satisfying melodic shifts and a couple of nice atmospheric passages



only checked this because of the review, so cheers good sir / madam 🍻

Album Rating: 4.0

Thanks Demon! And I am a sir/dude/chap, however you'd prefer, haha

Album Rating: 4.0

Demon decided to aprove this, We can close the week now (while We await his 3.5)

Album Rating: 4.0

Oh wait! Slugdge drummer is on this! Nice!

Album Rating: 3.5

Bold of you to assume this’ll be receiving such a positive grade



…but yeah, probably

Album Rating: 4.0

i don't mind programmed drums so long as they sound good, even if the performance is a bit unrealistic (like the latest hoplites album lmao)



they sound fine here imo. can only really tell they're fake during the parts where there's minimal drums which is not very often. (middle of the first track where the drums keep count on a clearly copied and pasted open hi hat comes to mind)



something like 90% of real metal drums since 2010 are sample replaced anyways

"something like 90% of real metal drums since 2010 are sample replaced anyways"

Yeah, kick is almost always replaced. Makes it easier on the engineers lol. Snare and toms are often too but I think much of the time it's just used to beef up weak hits. Cymbals are usually the most obvious part of programmed drums though for sure. And also just the way they are programmed. Some people are really good at programming drums in a way that sounds like something a drummer would actually play

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

As someone who uses MIDI drums in their own recordings, what part of a programmed drum performance bothers you the most? I think this would be a useful discussion for someone who wants to make things sound better every time they have a go at it.

I'm not an audio engineer so it might be hard for me to describe in technical terms what bothers me. But what I feel like it is much of the time is the decay and attack aren't quite right. But also a lot of the time it's just that the way drums are programmed just doesn't sound the way I'd imagine a real drummer might play it. Just little stuff like a kick with a hihat being unnaturally placed or something

This rips so far. Vocalist sounds just like the guy from Aeviterne

Album Rating: 4.0

yeah non-drummers writing drum parts is where i think the real pitfalls of programming metal drums are ultimately. struggling to think of an obvious example rn, but like writing awkward parts a real drummer would never naturally write or play themselves can easily break emersion, even if you're using the most authentic sounding midi drums available. i don't necessarily mean physically impossible stuff like 10 minute long blast beats or anything, but like awkward fills, bad ghost note and kick placement etc.



i've also found fills i know for 100% fact sounds good when i play it on a real drum set sounds like complete ass when programmed because the samples make it sound weird, or the dynamics need to be adjusted, or any number of things. it's like an entirely different instrument kinda

Yeah, Alex put it into better words than me. But most stuff that is really jarring to me probably wouldn't even be noticeable to someone that doesn't play lol. There are a bunch of albums that riff hard that I've turned off after a song or two though because the programming really bothered me

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

how do y'all feel about the over-the-topness of something like mare cognitum (example, solar paroxysm) where it's just super super super obviously inhuman

Album Rating: 3.5

generalising here but I wouldn’t care one jot / could in fact be a positive aspect of the sound, depending on how well it fits within the overall aesthetic

I didn't even know the drums are programmed with how much sampling and triggering is going on nowadays, it just sounds bad to me. the whole thing sounds really overcompressed, and it's really hard for me to enjoy the music when the sound in general is just so unpleasant. which is a shame, because the compositions really sound interesting, I just couldn't get to the end of the album.

Album Rating: 4.0

what demon said [2]



programmed metal drums are at their best when they are extremely overdone. like eak pointed out... there's something kinda wonky about the attack and decay of midi drums, but if you're writing parts that are fast and way over the top you're essentially eliminating that problem.



something like mare cognitum is at an advantage... they obv programmed those drums and they don't care who knows... where as cave sermon is programming drums with the intent of sounding as authentic and human as possible. sort of an uncanny valley type thing, the flaws in the latter are going to be far more apparent because they're actually trying to sound real.

Album Rating: 4.0

Hmmm a 4 atm for my fellow country men

Album Rating: 4.5 | Sound Off

that makes a lot of sense alex, appreciate the perspective

Album Rating: 4.0

programmed metal drums are at their best when they are extremely overdone.



Hehe right Anaal goes for that

Album Rating: 3.5

Last track goes hard but also milks it a little. Especially when you consider the whole giant droning ‘accompaniment’ / glorified interlude preceding it. Still, this is a good one overall