Gameofmetal's 3rd quarter
ranking is worst to best, u get tha picture |
| 1 |  | We Came As Romans
We Came as Romans
Pretty big drop off after Tracing Back Roots, which I consider their best output to date. The band went for a much more accessible radio edged sound, yet somehow compromised their hooks in the process. It's good to see Dave singing more, but it doesn't do all that much for the album. Essentially bland, rock/post hardcore that does little to nothing of interest. |
| 2 |  | Bullet for My Valentine
Venom
We all hated Temper Temper, so anything that's not a repeat of that should make everyone quite happy. The only problem is that BFMV has been too far gone from the days of The Poison to adequately recreate it in an interesting fashion, and there's a bit too much influence from Temper Temper hovering about to make this even remotely good. |
| 3 |  | Bring Me the Horizon
That's the Spirit
Oliver Sykes sings predominately over Linkin Park worshiping electro rock tracks. There are maybe four or five solid, listenable songs here and none with any staying power to make them worth digging through all the lackluster tracks. |
| 4 |  | Parkway Drive
Ire
Of the four truly bad albums I've listened to this quarter, this one stings the most. Parkway Drive have been highly consistent in their output up until now, and that's what makes it hurt. Between aping 80s heavy metal, aping a combination of nu metal and king 810 vocals, and even aping themselves a couple of times this things just does so little good across its run time. A few gems, but even they don't stand up to anything on their past records. |
| 5 |  | The Bunny The Bear
A Liar Wrote This
Well these guys really grew up. Dropping the "Bear" was a good move, considering how awful his voice was. The Bunny sings more, as opposed to his horrendous yelly/screeching harsh vocals and the new female singer is quite good. Hell the instruments even perform admirably, considering all they used to have in their arsenal were simple breakdowns and basic power chord progressions. It's not a great album, not even good since the songwriting is still hit and miss, but it's not truly bad either. |
| 6 |  | Pissgrave
Suicide Euphoria
The album cover is definitely disgusting, and the music really wants you to think it's filthy, but really all there is here is average brutal death metal trying to convince you they're controversial and interesting. |
| 7 |  | Neck Deep
Life's Not Out To Get You
Say what you will about their past releases aping The Story So Far, but I liked it. Here they try to expand their sound and go for some more traditional pop punk ideas, but I just does a lot less for me that I'd like. |
| 8 |  | Myrkur
M
Despite a fantastic vocal performance, M suffers from underdeveloped songs and not much musical identity. It's probably the closest to good of my average ratings this quarter, but you still won't find me returning to it much. |
| 9 |  | Black Tongue
The Unconquerable Dark
Despite being a huge step up from their eps, The Unconquerable Dark still suffers from the same problems. It's so goddamn slow and drawn out and reliant on chugging breakdowns that it's hard to respect it for its musicality, but Black Tongue manage to pull off some real atmosphere and interesting ideas at times. It's quite a bit longer than it should be as well, but for what it's worth, it's not that bad. Just average. |
| 10 |  | Falsifier
Life in Death
Here we go with the soft 3's. Falsifier do downtempo deathcore fairly well by not quite being as boring as Black Tongue and keeping the release's run time comfortably short. Nothing else really to say here. |
| 11 |  | Conquer Divide
Conquer Divide
Essentially very generic metalcore, but the clean singer has some pipes, and they understand hooks and songwriting enough to pull the album through. |
| 12 |  | Bea Miller
Not an Apology
Catchy, uninventive pop I guess. Not too bad. |
| 13 |  | Miss May I
Deathless
Suffers from the same problem as BFMV. They want to get back to their glory days so badly that the aggression on this feels phoned it. I'll give it to them though, it works a lot better than it did for Venom. |
| 14 |  | The Devil Wears Prada
Space
Losing Chris Rubey, a major songwriter, left them in a weird place, but this didn't turn out too badly. It could've been a lot better, as pretty much all the songs are below the standard of their last few releases, but it works fairly well as a whole. |
| 15 |  | Blessthefall
To Those Left Behind
Inoffensive poppy metalcore/post hardcore. Not a fan of Beau Bokan, but he didn't irritate me to the point that I couldn't listen to the album. |
| 16 |  | Stalingrad
Stalingrad
Yaknips powerviolence thing. I didn't think it was too shabby. I have no experience in powerviolence though so take my opinion with a grain of salt. |
| 17 |  | Run the Jewels
Meow the Jewels
I guess it's funny, and I love the original songs, but I have a sneaking suspicion that if I listen to it ever again I'll realize how fucking retarded it really is. |
| 18 |  | Between the Buried and Me
Coma Ecliptic
The 3.5's. BTBAM goes pretty ham on the prog and clean singing, but it's a lot better than the singles led me to believe. Easily their worst record (that I've heard at least), but solid in its own right. |
| 19 |  | Zao
Xenophobe/Fear Itself
Vicious, furious metalcore that makes me want to punch walls. |
| 20 |  | Phinehas
Till the End
Phinehas doing Phinehas again. It feels a bit stale this time around, but their shreddy, fast brand of metalcore is as entertaining as always. |
| 21 |  | Lamb of God
VII: Sturm und Drang
Consistently good band, and this album is no exception. It doesn't wow, but if I'm in the mood I know it'll get the job done. |
| 22 |  | Knuckle Puck
Copacetic
Catchy, energetic pop punk. |
| 23 |  | Assemble The Chariots
World Architects
Odd mash up of proggy, techy, and melodic death metal with maybe a smattering of core. Good stuff all around, short and sweet to boot. |
| 24 |  | Volcanic Queen
Photography Shield
User made project. Droney and noisy and good. |
| 25 |  | Sirens and Sailors
Rising Moon : Setting Sun
Generic metalcore, but well executed. |
| 26 |  | Stories
The Youth to Become
Not sure where the big Underoath comparisons. Sure it's post hardcore, but that's really where the comparisons end for me. Very good stuff though, if kinda generic. |
| 27 |  | Rivers of Nihil
Monarchy
Bit of a step down from their debut. Monarchy feels suspiciously like Rivers of Nihil's take on JFAC's Sun Eater, and that steals a lot of enjoyment for me. Regardless, it's still solid atmospheric, technical death metal. |
| 28 |  | Carly Rae Jepsen
E MO TION
This is just one of those albums, like Taylor Swift's 1989, that I just know I'll hate but then the hype train rolls around to make me reconsider. And like clockwork, I listen and discover that it's too infectious for me to hate at all. Very catchy, lovable synth pop even if "I Really Really Really Like You" or whatever is godawful. |
| 29 |  | Nile
What Should Not Be Unearthed
Like Jac says, these guys know their way around a riff or two hundred. Very invigorating technical death metal from some of the old school masters, and a step up from their last record for sure. |
| 30 |  | Defeater
Abandoned
Sure, Defeater has been running on fumes for a while now, but I still enjoy them far more than I should. Abandoned is passionate and full of energy, even if the band could use some new tricks in their repertoire. A bit better than Letters Home for me. |
| 31 |  | Lost Salt Blood Purges
Damage to Limbs
Limbs 5 soty, rip skele [2] |
| 32 |  | Thespian
Through Hardships To The Stars
Another user made project. Twinkly, electronic post rocky "stuff". Check it out, it's pretty good. |
| 33 |  | Scale The Summit
V
The first half is absolutely up to par, but I lose interest late in the album. I wish they would play around with clean guitars more, like they used to, but Scale The Summit do it again with another great instrumental prog album. |
| 34 |  | Lana Del Rey
Honeymoon
She's divisive, there's no doubt about that, but I have a weird affection for her dreamy, moody style of pop. |
| 35 |  | Cradle of Filth
Hammer of the Witches
The upper tier. Symphonic black metal isn't my usual forte, but Cradle has won me over of late with this release and getting back to their classics, which this is almost up to par with. |
| 36 |  | Counterparts
Tragedy Will Find Us
A darker, sadder comeback for the melodic hardcore outfit, and it's easily their hardest hitting to date. I wish there were more songs as distinct and good as "Burn" but it still rules across the board. |
| 37 |  | Northlane
Node
I had doubts after the departure of Adrien, but Marcus fills his shoes admirable with a stronger singing voice, if not stronger harsh vocals. The production is flat however, but the musical experimentation they've done here makes up for it. |
| 38 |  | Echo Tail
King Defeatism
Yet another user made project, probably the best I've heard of the lot for this quarter. Check it out |
| 39 |  | Suis La Lune
Distance/Closure
Scramz good enough to certainly make me a fan of the band. |
| 40 |  | Single Soul/Boring Bathtimes
photo shoot suicide
another yaknips and another user I can't remember for some reason, check it out [1000] |
| 41 |  | Cattle Decapitation
The Anthropocene Extinction
A strong follow up to Monolith that's shy of actually topping it. They do a lot of great and interesting things, but if there's one thing I don't like, it's how they use Travis' pseudo clean singing. It just hit so much harder in the smaller, irregular doses offered up on Monolith as opposed to the formulaic chorus usage here. |
| 42 |  | Dark Sermon
The Oracle
Huge mark up for the band. Instead of blatant TBDM worship, we get dense atmospheric blackened death metal that crushes and pummels you into oblivion. |
| 43 |  | Ghost (SWE)
Meliora
retro classic heavy metal/hard rock/doom that rules |
| 44 |  | The Wonder Years
No Closer to Heaven
Nowhere near topping The Greatest Generation, but an admirable followup nonetheless for the pop punk outfit. |
| 45 |  | The Black Dahlia Murder
Abysmal
Abysmal kind of perplexes me. On the one hand, it's another solid addition to TBDM's discog, but at the same time I get a sense of it being mechanical in the same way that made Deflorate a bit of a misstep. Whatever my mixed thoughts, this is still TBDM doing their shit and doing it well. |
| 46 |  | Little Simz
A Curious Tale Of Trials + Persons
Potsy told everyone to check this out and everybody did and everybody agrees it rules. Sick hip hop. |
| 47 |  | Native Tongue
Driftwood Head
A friend of mine's band just put this out and it's very very good. A nice blend of post hardcore, alt rock, and post rock with maybe a touch of noise at times. Any fan of Brand New could probably find something here to like. |
| 48 |  | The World Is a Beautiful Place...
Harmlessness
Twinkles hard, I liked it quite a bit. First time with the band, but I'm firmly interested now. |
| 49 |  | Soilwork
The Ride Majestic
The tippy top. Wasn't sure they would top The Living Infinite, but they did. The Ride Majestic is more concise (by thankfully not being another double album), catchier, faster, and just as creative. One of the best melodic death metal records in recent memory that isn't Dark Tranquillity (rip 2016 when dat new album drops hopefully) |
| 50 |  | Cruciamentum
Charnel Passages
One of the best death metal releases this year. Snox did a great review for it that explains it better than I ever could. |
| 51 |  | Deafheaven
New Bermuda
Frankly, I like this better than Sunbather. The interludes are gone and the variety has been stepped up immensely. I don't care for how thin the guitar tone is, especially in the heavier sections, but everything else generally strikes the right chords with me. |
| 52 |  | Horrendous
Anareta
This hasn't actually dropped yet, but after listening to the leak for weeks now, I'm pretty sure it's my favorite of the quarter, and definitely gonna be in my top 10 of the year. Ecydsis ruled but it wasn't exactly the most original thing ever to be fair. Anareta, however, sculpts a clear identity of who Horrendous are and are going to be. |
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