Metal Reviews

So it is THAT good? When I saw NR live one week ago they played "Fools Never Die", "Never Trust" and "Deliverance" and I thought that only Fools Never Die was great...but seeing that the other two weren't included in the "killing songs", I think I have to get this album

Hmm, if you like it I might get it, you seem to know your shit on True Metal, wether I agree with your Thrash love or not.

My god, I can't for my life understand how anyone would rate the older NR albums higher than the newer ones? For one, Jonny sings better (and after five years he shouldn't be considered "the new singer"), the songs are heavier, more original and the energy level is by far exceeding all the first few albums.

I think most of you suffer drim a classic case of "their first records were better"...without even giving the new ones a few decent spins.

And maybe the best part - these guys don't stoop to singing about "metal", "steel" and "brothers". That should at least count for something.

The newer stuff is too generic. It sounds like everything else, and for that it lost all originality. The singing is nothing special, not bad, but nothing special. The first three albums were catchy and much more complex than what Nocturnal Rites has to offer today. I'm not saying the newer stuff is complete shit, but it is not worthy of the older stuff. People hear things different dude.

They did lost some of their originality.The singer is great, I think he has evolved much since Afterlife and now he sounds just as good as the best of this genre.The first 3 NR maybe a little more complex yes, but more catchy they ain't.For me the first 2 NR albums were done by a completely different band with the same name.There are good in there own way, so comparing their older non-commercial stuff with the newer more catchy and polished albums is impossible..But like you said people hear things different.

Yeah, luckily we all hear things differently. Or else I guess there would be no point in hanging around this forum?

However, Nocturnal Rites rocks, rules, kills, slays and pretty much everything in between. Nuff said.

Ahh the new stuff is so boring....and they downtune...so thats gay.....also there's no awesome harmonies like there were on the first three....the song structures are bland as hell.....and the new singer.....he doesnt suck, but there's nothing special about him. They tried to set themselves apart from the "true metal" crowd of bands.....and all they ended up doing was dumbing their sound down and join the ranks of boring power chord driven crap like new Helloween. I dont see how they saw it as a progresison, more like de-evolution. They should have gone prog...this sucks.

Holy_Terror: did you even hear the new album? Downtune... As far as I can figure out from my guitar while jamming to their songs, most of them are in E flat, which 9 out of 10 bands play in...

E flat is downtuning. Standard E is regular tuning.

ok, then you should hate pretty much everything out there. enlighten me with a few bands that actually play in standard E, please.

Just about all the bay area thrash bands. Most of the German Thrash bands....old Riot, old Helloween, etc. E flat tuning is a modern invention to compensate for singers who can't sing in tune with E guitars. The human voice tends to go flat so the guitar players down tune to compensate for this. I think its dumb, and less heavy. Plus the strings get all loose and don't resonate as well, to fix that you have to get very heavy strings...in which case you can do bending of no sort. So there you have it. Standard E is better for many reasons, it teaches your singer to control his voice, and the strings are more taught so you can control your playing more. Downtuning is stupid. There.

So you are saying bands like Dream Theater, Evergrey, Symphony X and so on can't play and sing? Because they sometimes tune down? Dream Theater goes all the way down to A sharp in some songs.

Not being able to bend and using to thick strings would rather call for a stupid and crappy guitarist than a bad singer. Singing a half note higher is not the end of the world. I'd say all singers can do that, tuning down would just rather give them more variation.

More variation??? I dont see how thats variation. Tuning is so minor a thing that it alone can't give a band variety. That being said its important to note that down tuning or using alternate tunings isnt necessarily a bad thing, I can understand bands like Dream Theater or Led Zeppelin who use all different kinds of tunings, but to stick to just one shows some deep seeded inabilities...like vocal range being flat....or trying to make the music heavier by downtuning because the riffs themselves arent heavy....like a lot of modern power metal bands....like Nocturnal Rites, it ends up failing because of people like me, (and I'm not saying there are many), who can pick it out. It seems like a cop out to me. ANd I never said that my opinion is fact. I just happen to think its really stupid, and I just happen to prefer standard E to E flat, that half step makes a difference in my ears. It just sounds more crisp and heavy in my ears.

ANd when I said sticking to one tuning being bad...I meant E flat.

H_T, do you think of going to IEMF show at Harpo's Sept 30?

Yeah, nail on the head.

Ha ha...probably not. I have the LSAT on Oct 1st and all of those bands are from the school of metal that I detest.

And Radagast...you're right, I hate just about all modern metal.

What is LSAT?

its the law school entrance exam.

Is this graduate law, after 4 yrs of pre-law undergraduate studies? So you want to be a lawyer, what kind of law are you thinking about to practice? I'd kill right now for the good business law/litigation guy, as my company is suffering tremendously from one obnoxious customer of ours - you know, want 2000% work done, never pay anything on time, and soemtimes at all.