Metal Reviews

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Nice review. This album struck me as their weakest other than the dreadfully medicore "Like Gods of the Sun". The first track, "To Remain Tombless" is very strong and then after that it basically became a snoozefest.

It started to slide for me after And I Walk With Them, I guess I have more patience when it gets to MDB. Like Gods of the Sun is definitely not one of my favs, and I also thought there were some similarities, but ALoDK is better IMO.

If you don't mind my asking...

How would you rank every MDB full-length album?

I'd rank them:
1. Turn Loose the Swans
2. The Angel and the Dark River
(big gap)
3. The Dreadful Hours
4. Songs of Darkness, Words of Light
5. As the Flower Withers
6. The Light at the End of the World
(big gap)
7. 34.788% Complete
8. A Line of Deathless Kings
9. Like Gods of the Sun

Btw-Your comment about liking Aaron's clean vox was interesting: I usually hear reviewers complain about them, but I always liked them as you do.

Let's see, this is very much on the fly:
The Angel and the Dark River
Turn Loose the Swans
As the Flower Withers
(somewhat of a gap)
The Dreadful Hours
A Line of Deathless Kings
(bigger gap)
Songs of Darkness, Words of Light
The Light at the End of the World
(does not matter waht kind of gap)
Like Gods of the Sun
34.788% Complete

I think his clean vocals are great, man sobbing in a loss that grieves him tremendously. What is not to like? Better yet than another grating hollow grunt. I am not saying Aaron's is one, but all those who claim that doom must be done that way ... I don't know, there is defintely room for clean vocs in doom.

Weird. I remember hating this band when I heard them way back in the day. I listened to the three samples on their website last night and kind of like them. They're short samples, but it makes me wonder if now I should give them another try? I first heard them way back in like 1993 or 1994, haven't tried them since. I just assumed they sucked.

I was listening to this one again today after reading the review. I just can't get into it (along with the last few releases) all that much. I kind of agree that it starts off well, and then fades. It almost picks back up a little, but then the last track is just... well... what Alex said.

Eyesore,

I honestly wonder if you wouldn't like the Like Gods of the Sun album. And as I recall, at least one of the myspace tracks is from that album... I don't know... the tracks on that one are less drawn out and doomy than on most of the other albums so depending on what you do or don't like about them, maybe that would be a good place to look. *wonders if he's gonna get flamed for saying this as it's not exactly one of their more heralded albums*

Otherwise, I'd probably steer you towards Angel and the Dark River.

-Tyrion

Agreed on doom metal vox. And your "on the fly" rankings seem perfectly reasonable.

I had never really got into this lot, until I heard "To Remain Tombless", I think, from a Terrorizer CD and it completely blew me away, enough to dig out "The Light At The End Of The World" that I bought ages ago. And it's clicked! Great band, Ken, try again when you're feeling a little annoyed at the world.

Great band, great album. Goes so well with the magnificent autumn outside. It will be in my top 10 this year.