Controversial opinions on metal

Woolie Wool said:
Reign in Blood does not need to be longer, it needs to either be more varied and less repetitive, or it needs to be shorter. There are a grand total of two worthwhile songs on Reign in Blood and the rest of it could be pared down to a few minutes and be much better for it. Riffs alone cannot carry an album, you need songwriting, dynamics, tempo changes, interesting rhythms, or it all starts to melt into one blob unless it's kept very short (EP length). As for UltraBoris, I do not agree with him all the time or even 80% of the time, but he certainly has far more diverse musical tastes than you give him credit for, including Black Sabbath, Motley Crue, W.A.S.P., and even Helloween.
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Um... it does have all of those things you mentioned. Every song is memorable from start to finish... every riff is good... there are tempo changes (a couple of OBVIOUS examples would be Angel of Death, Jesus Saves, Alter of Sacrifice, Postmortem... fuck are there any songs that don't have tempo changes on this album?)... there's interesting rhythms... I would say that it hardly metls into a blob... in fact it is very short and is the length of most EPS! The only difference is that most EPS have like 4-5 songs while this album has 10 songs. I once heard Hanneman respond to someone in regards to this album who said "It's so short..." his response was that there is just as much material here as there is on a Judas Priest album, it's simply played much faster. And you know what? He's pretty much correct. You'll find just as many riffs, solos, tempo changes, etc. as you will on a standard 40-50 minute album only this is played a faster pace.
 
Whatever Hanneman says, there is homogeneity to it, and I dislike overly homogenous music, be it Reign in Blood, European flower metal (as in Sonata Arctica and the like), "norsecore" black metal like 1349, Dragonforce, or any genre with "grind" in it, etc. Judas Priest albums change mood and feel drastically from song to song--"Exciter" does not sound much like "Beyond the Realms of Death", which does not sound like "Saints in Hell", which does not sound like "Heroes' End". A 7-minute song is almost invariably better than seven one-minute songs that all sound alike, because it actually has time to develop somewhat instead of just fizzling out.

Then there's the so-called singing of Tom Araya, who severely damages the album by himself and contributes to the homogeneity by having absolutely no variation whatsoever in his voice except for the one rape scream in "Angel of Death" that is actually pretty cool. Slayer could have been helped greatly by having a competent death metal vocalist.
 
Woolie Wool said:
Whatever Hanneman says, there is homogeneity to it, and I dislike overly homogenous music, be it Reign in Blood, European flower metal (as in Sonata Arctica and the like), "norsecore" black metal like 1349, Dragonforce, or any genre with "grind" in it, etc. Judas Priest albums change mood and feel drastically from song to song--"Exciter" does not sound much like "Beyond the Realms of Death", which does not sound like "Saints in Hell", which does not sound like "Heroes' End". A 7-minute song is almost invariably better than seven one-minute songs that all sound alike, because it actually has time to develop somewhat instead of just fizzling out.

Then there's the so-called singing of Tom Araya, who severely damages the album by himself and contributes to the homogeneity by having absolutely no variation whatsoever in his voice except for the one rape scream in "Angel of Death" that is actually pretty cool. Slayer could have been helped greatly by having a competent death metal vocalist.
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I think Araya's vocals are fucking awesome on this album and death metal vox would sound entirely out of place in their music. But yes it does sound homogenous and frankly I wouldn't have it any other way. That's what my point initially was... look at it more like a Suite with a longer opening and closing section with shorter movements in between. Part of what makes RIB so great is how they are able to squeeze so much damn killer music into such a short and homogenous disc.
 
The average metal suite is actually far less homogenous than Reign in Blood, and they have a distinct rise and fall of tension that carries throughout the entire suite. There are even individual songs that pack more variety into less than a third of Reign in Blood's running length without sounding disjointed. Even thinking of Reign in Blood as a single musical unit, I don't finish it thinking that it has taken me somewhere or provided any sort of experience, not in the same way that Ulver's Bergtatt a suite of similar length, does. It can only do one trick, and it does it over and over until I lose interest and listen to Forbidden or hell, an earlier Slayer album, instead. It's not awful music, just either severely underdeveloped or severely overextended and either way outclassed by its predecessors.

And I actually have heard death metal covers of "Angel of Death" that sound better than the original.
 
Woolie Wool said:
The average metal suite is actually far less homogenous than Reign in Blood, and they have a distinct rise and fall of tension that carries throughout the entire suite. There are even individual songs that pack more variety into less than a third of Reign in Blood's running length without sounding disjointed. Even thinking of Reign in Blood as a single musical unit, I don't finish it thinking that it has taken me somewhere or provided any sort of experience, not in the same way that Ulver's Bergtatt a suite of similar length, does. It can only do one trick, and it does it over and over until I lose interest and listen to Forbidden or hell, an earlier Slayer album, instead. It's not awful music, just either severely underdeveloped or severely overextended and either way outclassed by its predecessors.

And I actually have heard death metal covers of "Angel of Death" that sound better than the original.
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I strongly disagree but whatever we clearly aren't changing each other's minds. I've heard death metal covers of Angel of Death also and they weren't even close to the icyness and hate in Araya's voice.
 
I think what saves RiB from mediocrity is its very short length and great punch.It's over before you're completely annoyed with it. I'm not sure I could've taken 10 more minutes of Slayer in RiB mode. Not such a bad album, but far from a masterpiece too.
 
DarkBliss said:
I think what saves RiB from mediocrity is its very short length and great punch.It's over before you're completely annoyed with it. I'm not sure I could've taken 10 more minutes of Slayer in RiB mode. Not such a bad album, but far from a masterpiece too.
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honestly i can only think of a few albums as well paced and put together as this one
 
Woolie Wool said:
The average metal suite is actually far less homogenous than Reign in Blood, and they have a distinct rise and fall of tension that carries throughout the entire suite. There are even individual songs that pack more variety into less than a third of Reign in Blood's running length without sounding disjointed. Even thinking of Reign in Blood as a single musical unit, I don't finish it thinking that it has taken me somewhere or provided any sort of experience, not in the same way that Ulver's Bergtatt a suite of similar length, does. It can only do one trick, and it does it over and over until I lose interest and listen to Forbidden or hell, an earlier Slayer album, instead. It's not awful music, just either severely underdeveloped or severely overextended and either way outclassed by its predecessors.

And I actually have heard death metal covers of "Angel of Death" that sound better than the original.
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What a load of pseudo-intellectual claptrap. Firstly, it's a thrash metal album, and referring to it as a "suite" is seventeen shades of the gayest gay and should be ceased henceforth. Secondly, the beauty and appeal of Reign In Blood is that it is a short, sharp blast of pure aggression. It has much in common with a lot of punk and hardcore albums in this regard. The songs have barely any gaps between them and are arranged so that the listener will be slapped around the chops furiously for under half an hour with barely any let up. If you are wanting it to 'take you somewhere' on a musically varied journey then you're most definitely barking up the wrong tree. If you don't like the way it sounds today or find it "severely underdeveloped", then you are probably attempting to read far too much into it. And if you really think that death metal vocals would work better on it, you basically shouldn't bother listening to it again, because you have entirely missed the point of the album in every aspect.
 
Satanstoenail said:
What a load of pseudo-intellectual claptrap. Firstly, it's a thrash metal album, and referring to it as a "suite" is seventeen shades of the gayest gay and should be ceased henceforth. Secondly, the beauty and appeal of Reign In Blood is that it is a short, sharp blast of pure aggression. It has much in common with a lot of punk and hardcore albums in this regard. The songs have barely any gaps between them and are arranged so that the listener will be slapped around the chops furiously for under half an hour with barely any let up. If you are wanting it to 'take you somewhere' on a musically varied journey then you're most definitely barking up the wrong tree. If you don't like the way it sounds today or find it "severely underdeveloped", then you are probably attempting to read far too much into it. And if you really think that death metal vocals would work better on it, you basically shouldn't bother listening to it again, because you have entirely missed the point of the album in every aspect.
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Agreed ten-fold, I couldn't have put it better myself.
 
Satanstoenail said:
What a load of pseudo-intellectual claptrap. Firstly, it's a thrash metal album, and referring to it as a "suite" is seventeen shades of the gayest gay and should be ceased henceforth. Secondly, the beauty and appeal of Reign In Blood is that it is a short, sharp blast of pure aggression. It has much in common with a lot of punk and hardcore albums in this regard. The songs have barely any gaps between them and are arranged so that the listener will be slapped around the chops furiously for under half an hour with barely any let up. If you are wanting it to 'take you somewhere' on a musically varied journey then you're most definitely barking up the wrong tree. If you don't like the way it sounds today or find it "severely underdeveloped", then you are probably attempting to read far too much into it. And if you really think that death metal vocals would work better on it, you basically shouldn't bother listening to it again, because you have entirely missed the point of the album in every aspect.
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FUCKING. DOT.

I'm quoting it again because it's right, and as such should exist as much as possible.
 
Satanstoenail said:
What a load of pseudo-intellectual claptrap. Firstly, it's a thrash metal album, and referring to it as a "suite" is seventeen shades of the gayest gay and should be ceased henceforth. Secondly, the beauty and appeal of Reign In Blood is that it is a short, sharp blast of pure aggression. It has much in common with a lot of punk and hardcore albums in this regard. The songs have barely any gaps between them and are arranged so that the listener will be slapped around the chops furiously for under half an hour with barely any let up. If you are wanting it to 'take you somewhere' on a musically varied journey then you're most definitely barking up the wrong tree. If you don't like the way it sounds today or find it "severely underdeveloped", then you are probably attempting to read far too much into it. And if you really think that death metal vocals would work better on it, you basically shouldn't bother listening to it again, because you have entirely missed the point of the album in every aspect.
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x2

This particular line is awesome-

"Firstly, it's a thrash metal album, and referring to it as a 'suite' is seventeen shades of the gayest gay and should be ceased henceforth."
 
Woolie Wool said:
It's not awful music, just either severely underdeveloped or severely overextended and either way outclassed by its predecessors.
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Actually, I find it severely outclassed by it's successors. I understand that Slayer and RiB in particular was a huge influence on extreme metal but when I listen to RiB today, what I hear is underdeveloped extreme metal.
 
Naturally I've heard those songs. I'm not the kinda person who'd bash an album I'm not even familiar with.

Raining Blood and Angel of Death are merely decent. Those other two songs I can barely recall.
 
I can understand how you think Angel of Death is decent, but Raining Blood... WHAT.

Let's just stop okay, you obviously don't like Slayer, that's fine, but watch out for the elitists, they'll most likely call you a fag. How original.
 
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