Metal Reviews

The only bands that I could put their name beside Emperor (Quality Wise) are Windir, Agalloch and Drudkh.

What about Horna at times?

I'm a Welkins man myself. I find this album a tad repetitive at times, thogh it is most "true" of all the albums

I dont know why, but i like IX Equilibrium better.

Ved Buens Ende, <Code> and Wyrd kinda have clean vocals, in a way. Meads of Asphodel sort of do some clean stuff also.

Hmmm... Six years later and I have to disagree with myself! This album is untouched by any standards, now... and in the eternal recurrence of events.

What an odd claim you made.

He was smoking too much weed back then.

Well, Rhys said IX Equilbrium was better, so I think that trumps in the odd claim department.

That and I held Agalloch in very high standards back in the day. I still do and I think "Pale Folklore" and "The Mantle" are absolute masterpieces which might be considered classics down the line. Drudkh, Well they have three albums that are also timeless! In actual facts, I wasn't really off the mark. Having said that, Emperor holds the position of legends in BM today and Drudkh and Agalloch really cannot compete with that.

I know some people that think Emperor just got better with each and every release. I personally still listen to Prometheus every couple of months and Nightside maybe less than that. However, in any case, it does not take away from the immense value in the compositions of Ihsahn.

I think the middle albums were good, but flawed. Nightside is timeless, and Prometheus was brilliant in a very different sense from Nightside.

Emperor, Agalloch and Drudkh are great bands, love them all. I don't know if I could choose only one.

It would be a very difficult decision for me as well.




Anthems and IX are masterpieces. What do you find the errors to be?

Odd production on the former, a bit too much death metal on the latter. Perhaps I should have said: very good albums. I just prefer the first and last to the middle ones, after about 100+ listens on each.

I see. Well, fair enough. I would Anthems benefits from that "odd" production, and IX just takes a different approach and experiments with genres. I definitely see your point, though.

Outside of Nightside and their live cd Live Inferno (I'm a live album whore) I'm not really sure where I should dive into next. Seems like everyone opinions vary with the mid to later albums.

I'd recommend Anthems as it has more in common with Nightside than their last two, just don't expect Nightside Part II.

Agreed. Going in order past Nightside is probably the best route. Each album is a progression away from the Nightside sound. All are great at the end of the day though so you can't go wrong.

And avoid their debut unless you enjoy hearing worse versions of ITNS songs.

I agree but I think V would spit daggers if he read that. Definitely not a consensus on that assessment.