morriscroy

Listening to Asphyx stuff after they reformed in 2007-8 with Martin van Drunen. The first batch of albums "Death ... The Brutal Way" (2009), "Deathhammer" (2012) and "Incoming Death" (2016) seemed rather forgettable. Sounded like generic modern slower death metal, with van Drunen's iconic voice.

I use to listen to the first two Pestilince albums, which had van Drunen as the vocalist. I thought Pestilence's "Consuming Impulse" could have been the most perfect sounding death metal album around 1990, and not the generic Scott Burns productions popular at the time. I picked up the first few Asphyx cds found in $1 dump bins during my "death metal" phase around y2k, but didn't think much of them at the time.

However, the current album Necroceros (their 10th album) sounds somewhat different than the previous three albums. It turns out the mixing/mastering engineer Sebastian Levermann was known more for symphonic power metal type stuff, and not death metal. Levermann is the singer of Orden Ogan.

(I thought the recent Orden Ogan album "Final Days" sounds sorta like Nickelback playing in a "Blind Guardian" style. The previous Orden Ogan albums sounded more like typical power/symphonic metal type stuff). A lot of other stuff produced by Levermann sounded mostly like typical symphonic power metal stuff.

This current Asphyx album Necroceros sounds like the songwriting is tightened up and better thought out, with some symphonic / power metal elements which fit together well with the death metal. Perhaps they had more time to go through the writing after the lockdowns first happened more than a year ago ?

beavis69

If you like van Drunen you should check out a band called Skeletal Remains. Their first album I thought it was van Drunen singing, guy sounds so similar to him. Really good modern death metal. Below is from their fourth (and newest album)

morriscroy

Thanks for the pointer.

The style of vocals is very similar. Good stuff.


There was a recent Martin van Drunen interview where he name drops Skeletal Remains.

https://www.heaviestofart.com/post/s...unen-of-asphyx

morriscroy

Looking through the Skeletal Remains' back catalog, I noticed their previous album "Devouring Mortality" also has the same mixing / mastering engineer Dan Swano as the three previous Asphyx albums.

Listening to some more tracks from "Devouring Mortality" and "Entombment of Chaos" and the three previous Asphyx albums along with other Swano productions, my first immediate knee-jerk impression was that Swano's production style sounded a lot like a "Scott Burns" style production with modern studio equipment.

Even today I still have somewhat mixed feelings about the "Scott Burns" style productions from the early 1990s, which I thought surgically removed all the rawness out of death metal and turned it into a thin sounding "misty perfection". This might have been the step up that death metal productions needed at the time in order to get a wider acceptance amongst then metal fans in the early 1990s, though at the expense of the primal rawness of previous death metal style records (such as Possessed "Seven Churches" or Sodom "Obsessed by Cruelty").

morriscroy

Picked up the Kreator remasters of Terrible Certainty, Extreme Aggression, and Coma of Souls. They were each two-disc sets, where the "Out of Dark ... Into The Light" ep was the second disc of Terrible Certainty, and live concert discs (from 1990) were with the other two remasters.

Back in the day, I had Terrible Certainty and Extreme Aggression on vinyl but I didn't bother with the cd versions at the time. The cd remasters of Terrible Certainty and Extreme Aggression are what I remembered them sounding like back in the day.

Back in mid-late 1980s, I always thought Kreator sounded like a buzzing "vacuum cleaner" which was reflected on Pleasure To Kill and Terrible Certainty. I didn't really listen to Extreme Aggression much in those days, but I remember the Randy Burns production was tightened up and didn't sound like a "vacuum cleaner" anymore. But nevertheless, the writing on Extreme Aggression was typical classic Kreator style speed stuff.

Back in the day, I never picked up the Coma of Souls album and haven't heard much of it previously. Listening to Coma of Souls earlier this evening, I never realized it was actually a very good album which sounded like a significant "evolution" of Kreator's song writing abilities. The writing is a step up from previous albums, which likely had a lot to do with Frank Blackfire doing a lot of the writing. If I had to guess, Blackfire might have had a huge backlog of good stuff which was never used by Sodom. Less "speed for the sake of speed" type of stuff, and a lot more involved guitar riffs/solos which were catchy.

Josh-da-man

Yeah, "Coma of Souls" is a really great thrash album. Kreator is one of those bands that really refined their sound over their 80s and early 90s albums.

I picked up this vinyl boxed set earlier this year, and it's pretty awesome:




Already had most of these on vinyl already (just picked up the new issue of "Terrible Certainty" last year, dammit), but couldn't resist this fucking thing. The book is really nice, and the cassette is a cool little artifact. Only watched part of the DVD, and it's okay, but nothing too special -- fairly typical of one of these things where they put a bunch of old stuff of varying quality on it. The colored vinyl looks really nice, and sounds good, too.

morriscroy

At the time without ever hearing it, I largely dismissed "Coma of Souls" thinking it was just going to be another "Extreme Aggression" part 2. I remember seeing the cd version at record stores in 1991, but not the vinyl version.

By then, I was reluctant to buy a cd which I didn't believe I was going to listen to it more than once, at two times the vinyl price. (ie. If the vinyl version was $10, the corresponding cd version was typically around $20 in those days).

As mentioned earlier in the thread, around 1990 I thought it was an easy spot to jump off the metal album treadmill when the vinyl lp versions were no longer being made or were very rare (ie. imports from overseas).

morriscroy

If I had to guess, it looked like old camcorder footage from the 1980s ?

Noise Records did a batch of Voivod three-disc remasters awhile ago, where each set's third disc was a dvd. I haven't seen them yet, but the descriptions of the dvd content suggest they are likely old camcorder footage of nightclub concerts from the 1980s. (Some of this might already be online for many years).

Other than watching them once or twice as an historical artifact from the "dark ages" of live metal videos, in the end I always found such old camcorder footage to be disappointing to watch.

The second cd discs from these Voivod remasters, appear to be old live concert tapes from hometown gigs at the montreal spectrum. If I had to guess, they were probably soundboard tapes recorded straight from the mixing board during the concert. (It would have been a lot more expensive to do a proper multi-track live recording). Back in the day, these three live recordings at the spectrum appeared to have been released as unofficial "demo tapes", where the cassette covers even featured Away's signature artwork + calligraphy.

morriscroy

Listening to Deathrow "Riders of Doom". I had the vinyl back in the day, but didn't really listen to it often.

The production was kinda crappy sounding, but sounded somewhat familiar. It turns out "Riders of Doom" was produced/engineered by Ralph Hubert, who around that same time circa 1986 also produced the Kreator "Flag of Hate" ep but was not credited. (Hubert's name was only mentioned in various online interviews/articles when that "Flag of Hate" ep is brought up).

During that time, Hubert also produced Rage's first album "Reign of Fear" and various Mekong Delta and Living Death albums. (Hubert was also the bass player in Mekong Delta).

Very similar sounding production on these 1986 albums from Rage, Deathrow, Kreator, and the first few Mekong Delta albums.

morriscroy

Picked up the Kreator "Live Apocalypticon" cd + bluray set released early last year 2020. (There doesn't appear to be a dvd version). It has three concerts which were professionally filmed and edited / mixed, in London uk, Czech Republic, and Chile over 2017-2018.

I never realized how good Kreator is in concert. The picture quality looks great in 1080p hd quality, unlike the older youtube footage which looked rather mediocre.

The Cow

I've only seen them a couple times (been a few years, when they toured with Sabaton), and they sounded great, but we could barely see them with all the smoke cover piping in constantly and a dark stage.

Josh-da-man

I've only skimmed the DVD, but there's a documentary and then some live stuff that I think is audio-only.

morriscroy

Been thinking about picking up some of the older Mekong Delta cds, but noticed they were out-of-print for awhile. The last re-release was by SPV / Steamhammer in 2013.


This may be old news to some folks, but I just noticed SPV / Steamhammer was bought up by Napalm Records back in December 2020.

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/na...sition-of-spv/

(Currently Napalm Records has bands like Destruction, Dee Snider, Candlemass, etc ...).


It would be great if Napalm re-releases / remasters some of old Steamhammer catalog titles, such as:

- Destruction (Sentence of Death, Infernal Overkill, Eternal Devastation, etc ... to the current day)
- Sodom (In Sign of Evil, Obsessed by Cruelty, Persecution Mania, Agent Orange, etc ... to the current day)
- Assassin (Upcoming Terror, Interstellar Experience)
- Hobbs Angel of Death
- Mekong Delta (debut, Music of Erich Zann, Principle of Doubt, Dances of Death, etc ...)

- Steeler (Axel Rudi Pell's previous band)
- Kreator (2000s era)
- Evildead
- etc ...

morriscroy

Speaking of Ralph Hubert and "Scott Burns", I just realized Hubert was the engineer on the first Living Death album "Vengeance of Hell". The original version released on Mausoleum Records in 1984, had a really horrible production which sorta sounded like an "extremely muddy" version of a "Scott Burns" style production. (This was old school german speed/thrash a year before Kreator's "Endless Pain" was released).


This was the version I heard back in the day, and later picked up the 2001 cd re-release (by shark records) which had this horrible original Mausoleum version.


What I never knew for many years until recently, was that this album was entirely remixed and re-released in 1985 on Earthshaker Records. (Back in the day, I never seen this remixed version and was completely unaware of it).

https://thecorroseum.org/labels/earthshaker.php

It turns out the 1985 remixed version is completely different, and doesn't have that extremely muddy "Scott Burns" style of sound production. (This remixed version was eventually re-released in 2014 by high roller records).

morriscroy

Back in the day Living Death was one of those bands whose records were difficult to find, even in the most dedicated import vinyl shops.

Ironically, their second and third albums "Metal Revolution" and "Protected From Reality" were easier to find in canada. "Metal Revolution" was released by banzai, while "Protected From Reality" was released by cobra in the mid-1980s. ("Protected From Reality" was actually released in england on gwr records, but I had never seen this version back in the day).


If high roller records (or another label) ever releases a Living Death complete cd box set, it would be a first day buy for me.

morriscroy

Former Trouble singer Eric Wagner recently died from covid pneumonia.

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/fo...vid-pneumonia/

morriscroy

I use to listen to the first Trouble album quite a lot back in the day.

morriscroy

Listening to Leaves' Eyes "The Last Viking". Came across several videos by chance on youtube, which sounded great.

"The Last Viking" sounds like well written power metal with some symphonic elements. The singer sounds like a soprano opera singer.

Fist of Doom Jr

How have I not heard of this band? This shit is right up my alley - kinda Nightwish-y, with a Viking Folk flavor. I'm listening to The Last Viking right now, and digging it. Thanks for the heads up!

morriscroy

After some more googling, I realize now who Leaves' Eyes are. It essentially started off as the guys from the death metal band Atrocity, playing power metal with a different singer.

When I went through a "death metal phase" around y2k, I picked up the Scott Burns produced/engineered Atrocity album "Hallucinations" and another one which was released by Roadrunner back in the early 1990s.

morriscroy

It seemed like that recent "London Apocalypticon" bluray got the right balance in regard to lighting, where it wasn't too dark (ie. blacks were not "crushed") and the light show brightness didn't look overly "saturated".

I noticed Kreator has two previous releases which included bluray discs: "Gods of Violence" and "Dying Alive". I noticed for these bluray versions, it would take several weeks (or months) to arrive for new copies. Though the dvd versions were easier to get, and were in stock at a few places. To determine whether it would be worthwhile to wait weeks/months for these bluray versions, I checked out the possible concert footage clips on youtube from these bluray concerts: Wacken 2014 and Oberhausen 2012.

There were some Wacken 2014 footage on ytube, where one looked like somebody copied the entire 2014 livestream into a file, and some 2014 clips posted in 2020 on the official wacken yt channel. These clips didn't look the greatest, where I suspect the bluray disc with "Gods of Violence" would like be using these same sources. In the case of the "Dying Alive" footage from Oberhausen 2012, there was a lot of complaints on amazon about the the fast-cut editing and constantly changing viewpoints. Some footage even looked like it was from Mille Petrozza wearing a bodycam camera. With this anecdotal evidence, I suspected it would be a waste of time hunting down bluray versions of these two titles.

When I finally watched these dvd discs from "Gods of Violence" and "Dying Alive", it turned out my suspicions were on the mark. The 2014 Wacken footage looked like it was the same as that copied livestream on yt. Even worse was that during the very dark scenes, one could see a field of dirt/grime on the lens of several cameras which was "static" and completely independent of the movement of other stuff on the screen.

In the case of Oberhausen 2012, it looked like they used over a dozen cameras with very fast-cut editing. Also had a very saturated red look to the entire video. By the middle of the concert, I was starting to get a headache from the saturated red hue and the fast-cut editing. It looked like a "Michael Bay wanna-be" edited the video in a sloppy manner.

So in the end if I have had the patience to obtain the bluray versions of "Dying Alive" and "Gods of Violence", it would have been watching these highly flawed videos in 1080p hd resolution with the same headaches and dirt/grime.


I also looked into other dvd discs with live concerts which came as bonus discs in the special versions of other previous Kreator albums, such as: "Phantom Antichrist" (Wacken 2008/2011), "Hordes of Chaos" (Summer Breeze Open Air 2006), Live Kreation 2003. To see whether I wanted to wait several weeks (or over a month) to order such titles, I also checked out various youtube footage and amazon reviews. Unfortunately the videos looked even worse.

"Live Kreation 2003" had a very annoying saturated light greenish tint on the entire video, where it looked like the entire video was filmed in pal (or ntsc). The Wacken 2008/2011 concert footage from the "Phantom Antichrist" bonus dvd disc was actually posted on yt in its entirely, where it had a really annoying light yellowish/orange saturated tint on the entire video. In the case of the "Hordes of Chaos" bonus dvd disc, it turns out the Summer Breeze live clips never made it onto the dvd disc and were instead posted online at the time.

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/kr...free-download/

In the end, I ended up just getting the generic cd copy of "Phantom Antichrist". (I already have the "Live Kreation" 2cd set, purchased back in 2003. It was the first Kreator live album I heard which didn't sound like shit).

morriscroy

Recently I thought about picking up the recent Destruction "Live Attack" live album, which comes with a bluray disc.

https://www.discogs.com/Destruction-...lease/19974133

Unfortunately what abruptly changed my mind, was that I noticed the disc was manufactured by "Optimal Media GmbH" with IFPI mould sid code 97**


It turns out the Beatles Abbey Road set released back in 2019 came with a bluray disc which was defective with tons of complaints online. These Abbey Road bluray discs were also manufactured by "Optimal Media GmbH". Since then, I've been very skeptical of discs manufactured with IFPI mould sid code 97**

https://www.discogs.com/The-Beatles-...lease/14191596
https://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...issues.884738/

morriscroy

I first came across it by happenstance. It turns out I was searching on youtube for something else unrelated to heavy metal music, albeit the previous videos I was watching a few minutes earlier in the session were some metal videos.

I recently watched on tv a documentary on PBS titled "Viking Warrior Queen" from the "Secrets of the Dead" series. I was a doing a search on youtube for more videos about this topic, where a Leaves Eyes video popped up in the search further down the list.

https://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/vik...or-queen/5180/

morriscroy

I have no idea what "viking music" is suppose to sound like. Musical notation didn't really exist over a thousand years ago, where tunes likely had to be memorized and passed down by oral tradition over many generations after the viking era ended.

The oldest case of a tune from that tradition which was actually written down later in rune script, is "dromde mik en drom i nat".




https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr%C3%...r%C3%B8m_i_nat

morriscroy

Picked up Leaves' Eyes albums "King of Kings" (from 2015) and "Sign of the Dragonhead" (from 2018). "King of Kings" had their original singer Liv Kristine, who sounds different than the current singer Elina Siirala.

These two albums sound like power metal with "bombastic" opera symphonic elements, with a few tracks which sounded more like drinking/partying folk songs.

"King of Kings" came with a second cd disc which had instrumental versions of all the songs on the album, and three additional tracks done as acoustic or piano versions. It turns out the acoustic versions were done for two songs "Vengeance Venom" and "Swords in Rock" which were most "folk music" sounding drinking songs on the album.