Graveland's Discography Ranked

[crimsonfloyd]

Directions: Rank Graveland's studio albums. Order and number each album 1-14. Ties are OK. Your first place album earns 14 points, your second place album earns 13 points, etc.

Rules:

• You may rank as few as 8 albums. Lists with less than 8 albums will not be counted.
• If you list less than 14 albums, the first placed album will still get 14 points, the last placed album will still get 1 point, and the albums in between will have points distributed proportionately. The average points earned for albums that are not listed will not be impacted positively or negatively, so if you don't rank an album, you neither help it or hurt it.

At the end, the albums will be ranked based on their average number of points per vote.

You have until Friday, August 4th to finalize your list, re-familiarize yourself albums you haven’t heard in awhile, familiarize yourself with albums you haven’t heard at all, lobby for any albums you think are underrated, and lobby against any albums you think are overrated.

And please, no pseudo-Machiavelli shit. Just rank them as you see them.

In the Glare of Burning Churches (1993)
The Celtic Winter (1994)
Carpathian Wolves (1994)
Thousand Swords (1995)
Following the Voice of Blood (1997)
Immortal Pride (1998)
Creed of Iron (2000)
Memory and Destiny (2002)
The Fire of Awakening (2003)
Dawn of Iron Blades (2004)
Fire Chariot of Destruction (2005)
Will Stronger Than Death (2007)
Spears of Heaven (2009)
Thunderbolts of the Gods (2013)

*I'm not counting the industrial demos he released before he became black metal
*I'm not counting demos, EPs, splits, or rerecordings, of which Graveland has many

 

[HamburgerBoy]

All of them - 0/10

 

[Slayed Necros]

1. Thousand Swords
2. Carpathian Wolves
3. The Celtic Winter
4. Following the Voice of Blood
5. Dawn of Iron Blades
6. In the Glare of Burning Churches
7. Creed of Iron
8. Immortal Pride
9. Fire Chariot of Destruction
10. The Fire of Awakening
11. Memory and Destiny
12. Spears of Heaven
13. Will Stronger Than Death
14. Thunderbolts of the Gods

 

[Master_Yoda77]

Woah. Ok. I gotta relisten/listen to about 90% of the catalog here

 

[The Ozzman]

All of them - 0/10

Holy shit, I lol'd. Totally unexpected.

The best part about this poll is that we can get some new bands going soon

 

[Onder]

Woah. Ok. I gotta relisten/listen to about 90% of the catalog here

Haha, same. Good thing that it's epic shit.

Thousand Swords is a classic, but I remember liking Immortal Pride a lot as well.

The demos are cool as well, it's good to see The Celtic Winter being in the poll.

 

[J.]

Following the Voice of Blood
Memory and Destiny
Fire Chariot of Destruction
Immortal Pride
Creed of Iron
Will Stronger Than Death
Thousand Swords
Dawn of Iron Blades
Thunderbolts of the Gods
The Fire of Awakening
The Celtic Winter
Carpathian Wolves
In the Glare of Burning Churches
Spears of Heaven

 

[The Ozzman]

@crimsonfloyd

Are you going to make a new poll for the next 5-6 of these we are going to do?

 

[crimsonfloyd]

@crimsonfloyd

Are you going to make a new poll for the next 5-6 of these we are going to do?

Yes. I’m on a work trip through this week, so I’ll probably set it up sometime next week.

 

[Krow]

Looks like this thread might not work. Graveland was a really bad choice. I like them and I'm not even sure I can listen to all their albums to rank them.

 

[The Ozzman]

Graveland had 5 votes. Where are those 5 people who voted? Poseurs.

 

[Omni]

I'll be posting my list soon.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

I'll be posting mine near the cut-off, as usual. But it wasn't the greatest choice. Burzum would have been a better black metal choice, since love him or hate him, most people know more than half of his records and can actually vote.

In general, bands with big discographies of similar albums are not good choices.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

@Dazed and Brutal @Vilden A reminder to get your votes in before the 4th.

 

[The Ozzman]

He probably went AWOL again. We need to get onto some less in crowd bands for this next group. The Chasm will probably get the most votes but whatever.

 

[Onder]

I'm almost ready to rank. Listened to Fire Chariot a lot in my car today.

From what I can say right now, the old school shit at the beginning is the material I used to listen to the most about 8 years ago. It's nice cold black metal with a great unique vibe, but the sound he achieved on Thousand Swords - that's probably the peak of the disco. Memory and onwards are kinda too Summoning-synthy and become a bit samey after a while, even though Fire Chariot especially is a monster.

 

[CiG]

Aren't both In the Glare of Burning Churches and The Celtic Winter demo tapes?

Immortal Pride (1998)
Following the Voice of Blood (1997)
Thousand Swords (1995)
Creed of Iron (2000)
Memory and Destiny (2002)
Dawn of Iron Blades (2004)
Fire Chariot of Destruction (2005)
Carpathian Wolves (1994)
The Fire of Awakening (2003)
Spears of Heaven (2009)
Thunderbolts of the Gods (2013)
Will Stronger Than Death (2007)
In the Glare of Burning Churches (1993)
The Celtic Winter (1994)

 

[Onder]

I was re-listening to Following the Voice of Blood on the train to Germany today. Nice to have some time to focus on separate pieces of the mosaic that is Graveland discography.

This album starts with some retarded Summoning synths. The intro has whole 3 minutes but what really gets the mood set is the absolute beginning of the first actual song. It's a fade-in of this horsey rhythm played by the full instrumentation. It basically tells you that some black metalz is coming to smash your face in a moment. It kind of reminded me of the Revbiz elephant thing on Return to Rectory. It's like "o shiz elephantz hide yo kids hide yo wife".

When the actual White Guys Forever song starts you immediately realize that the guitar sound is thin, kinda reminiscent of the demos around Celtic Winter time, however the whole thing put together is not as orthodox. Graveland's riffs were never overly imaginative, it's no different here. But what I appreciate is the rhythm section. It's no HamburgerBoy's favorite polka drums all the way but it keeps the juices flowing. The drum sound game is on fleek as well, very organic, albeit the playing is not clumsy.

Thurisaz has this epic vibe going on that reminds me of the albums that will come after this one.

There is some pagan-tribal drumming starting the title song. Like, the songs on this are 8 minutes or 12 minutes and shit like that. This title song has everything though, there's some d-beat drumming and all. Parts of the song remind me of Wulkanaz A LOT. And I love that band btw. This is probably the highlight of the album.

The rhythm changes in Raise Your Sword are like raising your sword, swinging it, and then crushing some Christian scum with it. iow the song is much appreciated and definitely contributes with its cultural values.

What to say about the vocals? Darken's phrasing always sounded like he's trying really hard to push his white heritage point across but is in fact missing the black man's feeling to make it sound harmonious.

"And The Horn Was Sounding Far Away" starts with some airy synths reminiscent of around Stronghold-era Summoning. It's funny how playing fifths on a cheap keyboard has been the number one recipe for middle-age feels for generations. One of the biggest failures of modern music, along with maybe that Hans Zimmer money laundering machine and the Eurovision Song Contest.

8/10 I would say. This album doesn't reach the level of Thousand Swords but it brings all the Graveland qualities up where you want them. Insecure white men in Europe will be proud of this for decades to come.

 

[CiG]

Are there any white men in Europe who aren't insecure? Seems like it's either white guilt or white pride on the continent, with seemingly no in-between.

 

[Onder]

Are there any white men in Europe who aren't insecure? Seems like it's either white guilt or white pride on the continent, with seemingly no in-between.

Men like me I guess.