I know but still King's in it pretty much the same

Ok I used that as a scape goat to cover up my confusion between albums gosh.

Pinkly Smooth - 'Unfortunate Snort': Not sure if it's really classified as metal, kinda more of avant-garde meets metal, but briliant never the less. Takes some getting used to, kinda weird music.

At The Gates - 'Slaughter Of The Soul': One of the best album's ever in my opinion. Period.

The Black Dahlia Murder - 'Miasma' & 'Nocturnal': Miasma is undoubtedly TBDM's best album. Its fast, brutal, melodic and overall simply perfect. Nocturnal pretty damn good to, it's more melodic death metal than Miasma.

Evile - 'Enter The Grave': One of the best neo-thrash albums I've heard in quite a while. Those guys are vicious and ridiculously fast. Their new album dissapointed me a bit, but it wasn't bad.

Exodus - 'Shovel Headed Kill Machine': Phenomenal band, hopefully seeing them soon.

Iron Maiden - Everything from 'Iron Maiden' to 'Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son': The un-official metal gods in my mind. Glad to see Bruce is back, but it just isn't the same.

Machine Head - 'The Blackening' & 'Burn My Eyes': Both fantastic albums.

Eh, can't agree with you. Nocturnal does have better production and all, but there's just something about the riffs and such in songs like 'Virally Yours' and 'Warborn' that for me will never top stuff like 'A Vulgar Picture' or 'Miasma'. I don't see why they should even try to compete with Dark Tranquility and the likes by putting out an MDM record, cause they'll never be as brilliant at it. Don't get me wrong, I do like Nocturnal a lot and 'Of Darkness Spawned' is my favorite BDM song, but it just isn't the same. Either way, I'm super hyped cause I'm seeing them in March.

Let it be a lesson not to do that anymore when I'm around.......... boy........

Coming back to the thing on MAIDEN, I'm spinning their first album right now. It's still a stone cold classic. Di'Anno > Dickinson.

Really? I couldn't disagree more. Personally, I find Slaughter Of The Soul to be incredibly powerful. Although it wasn't anything new, Slaughter is one of the best examples of its kind. The musicianship on that record is outstanding, and captures the best aspects of At The Gates in one neat 12 song (14 if you count the covers) masterpiece.

Hah. Nonsense about your second point. I can be perfectly civil.

Slaughter of the Soul is OK for what it is but I definitely think it's the weakest of the four At The Gates albums. Yes, technically they were at their peak, and that is reflected in an album that is cold and just creates no sense of any emotion in me when I listen. It's too polished, which is why I prefer the first two records over the last two I think. Yes, they were younger, and arguably weaker, more in experienced songwriters and musicians on The Red In The Sky Is Ours and With Fear I Kiss The Burning Darkness, but the sound is raw without sounding like it's been recorded in their own garage and it's just got a youthful, unbridled passion.

Also, there was more emphasis on the death metal than the melodic death metal on the first two albums, and I must confess to having gotten bored of the majority of melo-death a couple of years ago. I can understand why Slaughter of the Soul is held in high regard even if I'm not massively keen on it myself, but I do think it's often at the expense of more interesting records by the same group

all the good albums have been said i just say some that havent been said

peace sells...but who's buying - megadeth

Follow the Leader - KoRn

Vol. 3: (The Subliminal Verses) - slipknot

British Steel - Judas Priest

Toxicity - system of a down

thats about it but there is two more great albums that i have heard but havent got (yet)

act 3 - Death Angel

Alice in Hell - Annihilator

and thats about it

I find most death metal is too polished really, too obsessed with being technical, it kills any emotion in the music. Which doesn't mean I like stuff that sounds like it was recorded in a dustbin, but I'm a big fan of black metal and lots of other music than can be described as lo-fi. It's just more organic.

Oh, and Blind Guardian? Hahaha

Yeah, I have no love for technical ability at the expense of musical substance, an unquantifiable property I ascribe to music which reaches beyond the sum of its notes. Generally speaking, bands like Dream Theater, there's a lot of notes, and very few of them actually mean anything. The power of music for me is in the note, the right note, in the right place, at the right time, whether there by purpose or by accident.

It's a constant source of frustration for me that almost everyone I've ever known who plays guitar, has been in service to either bland indie strumming or metal showboating. Kids are obsessed with learning to play lots of notes, really fast, seemingly oblivious to the actual quality of each individual note. These kids who worship bands like Dragonforce and Blind Guardian and Dream Theater and Epica and Ensiferum and whoever else. Bands that I find nearly unbearable in their arch pantomime grandiosity.

Aesthetically I like the parts of metal, I just don't like the way they're usually put together. So I usually gravitate to the edges, where things are more weird, more unique, more interesting. Are Khanate metal? They have the components of metal, distorted guitars, screaming vocals, dark misanthropic lyrics, but every element is stretched out to ridiculous extremes, past breaking point even. That's what I like from my metal.