Mattowarrior's Metal Madness

Its been asked by friends and others why I don't listen to a lot of modern albums. For awhile, I looked at it as just a sign of being jaded after hearing literally thousands of albums, having been a long time veteran of the Metal scene, etc. But as I dug deeper and deeper into self-analysis on this subject, something became clear. I found that the problem I have with a lot of modern Metal isn't neccesarily because of stylistic permutations or lack of songwriting skills (though sometimes this is a culprit), its been because the production on a lot of modern albums are lacking. What does "lacking" mean? Well its not some "necro black metal" trend of production or anything of that matter. As a matter of fact, I am a big fan of the mid-nineties Black Metal scene, and did not like some of the commercial derivations of that, including bands like Cradle of Filth or Dimmu Borgir. Emeperor, Mayhem, or Satyricon may have sounded raw but their production had dynamics t...

About a year ago, the whole current debacle with Queensryche started with the band splitting in two camps: Geoff Tate with hired musicians, and Michael Wilton, Scott Rockenfield, Eddie Jackson and newcome Todd Latorre. I had done a review of the band's latest album "Dedicated to Chaos" previously, and reading articles through the recent years and seeing live clips, etc, it actually came as no surprise to a lot of people. The (alleged) knife wielding of Tate, the spitting on the drummer (though spitting on band members doesn't always have malicious intent, just ask Mike Portnoy!) as well as all the allegations in the press by Tate vs the rest of the band did come as a shock however. The remaining band's legal depositions came out in public, and me being the music nerd I am, read all of them. All of what transpired really stood out to me as being extremely similar to what had happened with Pink Floyd in the 1980's. Roger Waters had claimed to write all ...