2008: The Year in Music

[Guest Tzar Lysergic]

That's really the pinnacle of their stuff. Into the Pandemonium is good and all, but really, To Mega Therion is as deep as one needs to delve.

 

Don't listen to Cold Lake. Cold Lake is so fucking terrible. Bad.

 

There are worthwhile tracks elsewhere, but nothing I'd consider essential.

[haws bah gawd 0]

I absolutely love Death Magnetic. Haven't stopped listening to it, and playing it on Guitar Hero. Also excited for Black Ice, the new AC/DC album that's out next month. Should be a good last quarter.

 

I haven't heard anything from this album yet. To be honest, it's produced by Rick Rubin, so I honestly don't have much hope for it. I just don't care much for his style. Two questions though:

1 - Did Lars drop the trashcan drums?

2 - How does Unforgiven 3 sound?

[Slayer 0]

Re: Celtic Frost. If you want more straight forward dark metal, get Morbid Tales+Emperor's Return (originally a separate LP and EP, now issued on one CD). If you want more avant garde metal, get Into the Pandemonium, which includes an awesome cover IMO of "Mexican Radio". Those two plus TMT are the only CF you'll ever need.

[Corey_Lazarus 0]

More essential Celtic Frost:

SOD's "Celtic Frosted Flakes" pretty much explains the entire history of CF until their first break-up. Well, comedically, of course.

 

Haws:

1. Yes, Lars is back to using an actual drumset.

2. "Unforgiven III" is probably the weakest song on the entire album. It's better than "Unforgiven II," but the original is the best of the three. James' voice has gone so downhill in the last 5 years, even, that it ends up hurting the song. The instrumentation is fine, but Hetfield's voice...man, it's sad.

 

And what's wrong with Rubin? He seems to know how to at least produce a metal/rock album. I would've gone more for the Lightning style production here instead of Kill 'Em All, but it's still not that bad.

[Slayer 0]

More essential Celtic Frost:

SOD's "Celtic Frosted Flakes" pretty much explains the entire history of CF until their first break-up. Well, comedically, of course.

Here's the song on Youttube

[Guest Brady's Torn ACL]

No one was comparing Sam's Town to Bruce Springsteen. The Killer frontman (what's his name again? Something Flowers) just said in an interview that he was listening to a lot of Bruce Springsteen while they recorded it. You shouldn't have been reminded of Springsteen while you listened to it.

I don't hear it all that much beyond that vague sense of bigness, but in all fairness, the waves of reviews for both Sam's Town and Neon Bible were chock-full of conjectures that we were entering some sort of Springsteen revival.

 

No. That's absolutely wrong. What is 'When You Were Young' if not a subpar rewrite of 'Born to Run'?

I dunno, another entry into the pantheon of catchy MOR adult-contemporary rock singles?

[Gary Floyd 0]

I absolutely love Death Magnetic. Haven't stopped listening to it, and playing it on Guitar Hero. Also excited for Black Ice, the new AC/DC album that's out next month. Should be a good last quarter.

 

I haven't heard anything from this album yet. To be honest, it's produced by Rick Rubin, so I honestly don't have much hope for it. I just don't care much for his style. Two questions though:

1 - Did Lars drop the trashcan drums?

2 - How does Unforgiven 3 sound?

 

1-Yes he did. He's still not that good of a drummer, but oh well.

2-It's probably my least favorite track on the album, though it's much better than "Unforgiven II"

[haws bah gawd 0]

I absolutely love Death Magnetic. Haven't stopped listening to it, and playing it on Guitar Hero. Also excited for Black Ice, the new AC/DC album that's out next month. Should be a good last quarter.

 

I haven't heard anything from this album yet. To be honest, it's produced by Rick Rubin, so I honestly don't have much hope for it. I just don't care much for his style. Two questions though:

1 - Did Lars drop the trashcan drums?

2 - How does Unforgiven 3 sound?

 

1-Yes he did. He's still not that good of a drummer, but oh well.

2-It's probably my least favorite track on the album, though it's much better than "Unforgiven II"

 

I tried to give Unforgiven 3 a listen while I was in FYE this afternoon. All their demo station played was a 30-second clip of some pianos. No vocals or anything, so I'll probably just look on Youtube later or something.

[EL BRUJ0 0]

Man, I listened to the songs on their MySpace and then looked up some of their older stuff on YouTube and I really couldn't discern much of an obv. difference in quality. I guess I just don't have an ear for this stuff.

Yeah the ear thing definitely comes into play alot. To me, and this probably isn't consoling, I don't really discern differences between these two:

 

(and while I kid a bit, and yes I do see that there are apparent distinctions among them, to me the quality is on par...)

[Nighthawk 0]

Korn honestly aren't that bad of a band. I don't mind listening to their first two albums, the third is sort of in between, and beyond that, no, but they aren't some punchline. Their image and primary audience only gives that impression.

[PILLS! PILLS! PILLS! 0]

If there are any Mercury Rev fans out there, they have two LP releases out today- one of which (Strange Attractor) is available as a free download through their official website.

[Mik 0]

Not a fan of "Love Lockdown"?

 

Looks like you might just want to go ahead and skip the whole album.

[PUT THAT DICK IN MY MOUTH! 0]

You know, I wouldn't even really have a problem with the "all singing" gimmick if the production was up to Kanye's usual standard, but the comparison to that Thom Yorke solo record has really dampened my expectations on that front. A whole album of glitchy bleep-bloops, clicking sounds and off-key emoting. Sounds wonderful. I bet it cleans up at the Grammy's.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

That new T.I. is the shit. New Jeezy is good. New Game is aight.

 

I'll try and do mini-reviews sometime soo, if my physical therapy doesnt take up too much time/ energy.

[Timmy8271 0]

I'm not that big into Hip Hop but the New Game song is pretty good. But man what happened to Kanye, That love song is god awful. Is this "Voice synthesizer" this years "make a duet with flavor of the month chick"?

[Mik 0]

The other two songs that have been leaked suck too. "Cold Winter" and I forget the other whiny title name. Awful shit.

 

Man, dude is fucked up right now.

[Bruiser Chong 0]

I lost any interest in the album when I found out it was all Autotone Kanye. Fuck that noise.

 

New Game is decent, but the guy is still so generic in his delivery and persona. I don't advocate the whole gangster lifestyle, but Game is so inauthentic in that area, even though he plays up that whole aspect of his persona. His metaphors are weak and for the love of god, enough with the name drops. Some say that shows his knowledge of the genre; I say it's a bunch of ass-kissing and sign of laziness.

 

T.I.'s album is a mixed bag. There's some great lyrical content that's going to get lost because so many of the album's tracks sound like they were made for radio. A lot of people are going to remember the singles fondly, but unless you listen to and really absorb the lyrical content on the non-singles, it's going to get remembered as a fluffy pop-rap album. But I guess when you're heading to prison, you want your last creative output to leave a firm impression on the minds of as many people possible.

[FroGG_NeaL 0]

I'm starting to look at Paper Trail as T.I.'s Blueprint. I dunno. Maybe I'm wrong on that.

 

As for Kanye, since he lost the only girl in the world that knew him best, he's been high as a satelite.

[Lord of The Curry 0]

Love Lockdown is horrible. I want to see 808's and Heartbreaks go down like the Hindenberg. Fucking vocorder madness.

[Giuseppe Zangara 0]

I've only given it a single listen thus far so hopefully it'll grow on me, but the new Jay Reatard singles comp is a yawner. The previous singles comp and Blood Visions hooked me instantly.

 

I'm fine with liking someone who willingly calls himself "Jay Reatard," by the way.

[Gary Floyd 0]

DJ/Rupture's Uproot is pretty sweet, though it's more of a summer album. Still great stuff though.

[Guest Czecherbear]

I finally listened to Viva la Vida all the way through. I dunno. It's okay. Better than Coldplay usually is, I guess. I would've opened the album with "Lost?", and then slotted "Lost!" in as the penultimate. Good song in both its forms.