Top 10 Metal Albums of 2016

'spiral infinite' was a cool song on the sumerlands, basically the more uptempo that album got the better it was. too much pedestrian arena metal on the whole though and i don't think swanson's vocals suit it too well.

high spirits are just too commercial 'n homogenous 'n formulaic for me in general.

i never got very into that blood incantation either but it was pretty cool.
 
Yeah, I liked "Spiral Infinite" the most because it was the only song that stood out from the rest of the album, even though Phil Swanson sings "spiral infinity" during the song so I think that either he or the title was incorrect.

The album was massively hyped on every metal site that I went to last year, but it's mostly samey and mediocre and the vocals and lyrics are kinda awful too. It basically sounds like something you'd hear on a current rock station.

Actually, the fact that @The Ozzman doesn't like it seems weird in retrospect. I guess because Yoda also likes it so he can't listen to it.
 
What I appreciate about High Spirits in general is that they don't pretend to be some retro high art true metal project like Sumerlands seemed to pass itself off as, with its larger-than-life vocal style layered with reverb and framed by mediocre metalrock. It knows it's switch-your-mind-off hard rock/heavy metal and I like it when a band isn't trying to lie to me about its intentions.

High Spirits are not pretentious.
 
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There's at least one song on that Blood Incantation album that sounds literally like late 90s Death, just with a gimmick production. Total nu-incrowd death metal.
 
I love that we've arrived at the point where we needed to invent a new type of in-crowd designation.
 
Omni pretty much said it already

Nu-in-crowd must mean wannabe in-crowd like Yoda only, because myself, @no country for old wainds, @Slayed Necros, @Manic Ferocity, @Anom@nder Rake, and literally all of the true in-crowd think that Sumerlands is boring and/or garbage. Dodens Gay thinks that it's crap too.

High Spirits is better, but kinda boring too.

After many years of internet elitism and taste-formation, the in-crowd bands have now been disseminated enough through the metal conscience for younger people to pay tribute to the surface aesthetics of the true in-crowd, without possessing whatever imagined genuineness of spirit existed. It's in-crowd fashion, not in-crowd religion.
 
Glad that I could help. That said, the nu-in-crowd phenomenon is pretty new, so I encourage healthy debate on what bands belong in that zone as opposed to the regular in-crowd.

Personally, I really enjoyed the Blood Incantation album and I don't think that it belongs in the former.
 
You weren't even a member when most of them were around regularly. I never shit on anyone's taste unless they start shit. I'm strictly a reactionary.
 
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While I don't think that's true, you often provide throwaway Mort-like dismissive comments that weren't prompted, that's pretty funny.