mayhem

...the important thing is to be convinced and to motivate everything you say, Duane: these are indeed compelling arguments!

Beautiful, but at times really too "over the top"...

In its genre, I liked it, despite the commercial nonsense they've always been involved in. They are still the ones from "Dolcissima Maria," not those of "Luglio, Agosto, Settembre (nero)" or "Il giardino del mago." One note: it was more plausibly a 3/5...

But can you pay tribute to someone you consider a "master" without blindly replicating what he already played brilliantly? Then this whole thing about playing entire albums live has kind of worn me out: it’s a mental masturbation, it’s a mere exercise in style, it’s pointless in this sense, for me. I don’t know, Steve Harris considered "The Who" to be masters, but aside from a few covers, his "tribute" to Townshend & Co. has been IMPLICIT in the music that Maiden themselves produced. Covers are simply fun and enjoyable for fans of both (PF & DT), but they’re not 5-star albums! Otherwise, EVERY album is a MASTERPIECE, right? If Fariselli considers PF a hoax, he’s evidently saying it from the perspective of a strongly experimental musician like he is, who clearly doesn't appreciate the ordinariness—if I can call it that—of "The Wall" and "Dark Side...". From our point of view, it may seem exaggerated, but it’s not an unfounded opinion. The fact is that those who appreciate the virtuosic skills of Labrie & Petrucci will hardly ever appreciate less ordinary things (Zappa, for example): and then why do you pretend to forget that PFM, Banco, Balletto di Bronzo, Area, and Biglietto per l'inferno were doing the same things as DT 20 years earlier and better? DT only has the merit of combining excellent metal guitar with a progressive sound, but perhaps it’s precisely this idea that is unfortunate!

Here on debaser, there is a "reprisal" against the dt, and this is the point: I really like a lot of their pieces, for example "Erotomania," or many from "Metropolis 2" - but the day has not yet come when I can listen to one of their albums without getting distracted. And if we are still praising bands that make 90-minute CDs where you only listen to 5 minutes and scream masterpiece, we’re in for a rough ride...

It's important to be precise about these things, you're right: Conan came out later, but look! And here I was always comparing them to "He-Man and the Masters of the Universe"!!! :) I really appreciate this "defense" from you: I would have loved to read similar words for the reviews of other similar bands, dismissed and insulted in the worst way "just" because they use face-painting, growl, and similar things that purists will never like...

A pretentious band that makes nice albums (Metropolis 2, Awake) is, all in all, fine. A pretentious band that remakes one of the most famous albums by PF is simply "useless." And mind you, I’m not saying it’s either stupid or arrogant: "useless." I’m intrigued by Zarathustra's opinion on Labrie's singing, which I consider absolutely unsuitable for the genre he performs. Saying "Labrie can sing, he has studied for years" doesn’t mean he fits that context. Think about the voice of Balletto di bronzo (brrrrr). I still remember Labrie singing "Number of the beast," and I can’t sleep at night thinking about it. I find that voice too precise, too set (for my tastes "happy metal"!): I don’t know, maybe I just prefer rougher singing. In fact, even "Master of puppets" done by them disgusted me. Dear Zara, growl singing has always been ostracized by music schools: but they are the first to belittle even the Pink Floyd themselves, as well as DT. If it were only up to them, we would still be stuck with Bach and Beethoven. As for the "burps" singing, I’ll tell you this: listen to Opeth, Death, and then we can talk again. If everything that "sounds good" and comes from years of schooling is beautiful, then Pooh and Giorgia are super artists, while Zappa and Einsturzende Neubauten are pathetic loons. If you want to take it to the level of "but I like it," then peace, and that’s the end of the discussion :)

I only like "lateralus," that's what I'm missing and I’ll try to listen to it as soon as possible: it feels a bit heavy to read.

Ossian, sorry for the delay in getting back to you: forget about Deep Purple, they’re definitely a different thing... there are strongly innovative bands in this genre before (and sometimes even better than) Sabbath, if you take a look: without doing specific research, Jacula and Amon Duul II (both first album from the late 60s). All capable of beautifully playing what would later become, more or less, "doom" metal. But you might say that nobody knows them: but it’s also true that we listeners are too often influenced, in these matters, by the "sacred Triads" (Iron Maiden-Metallica-Megadeth, or worse Black Sabbath-Deep Purple-Led Zeppelin) and we often ignore (myself included) the best musicians, the "complete" artists buried in obscure CD shops... very often we praise this 10% of greats, but have no idea about the remaining 90%, and I find it a bit reductive. So it ends up that people give 5/5 to Vol. 4 - nothing wrong with that, of course, everyone(!). I guarantee you that there are too many precursors (like riffs and sound) of Sabbath: surely they have (more or less) well formalized the style...

Enough with the guns, please... if these are almost-masterpieces...