Senmayan

mien mo man, your review is indeed pleasant. Asia in Italy is largely unknown (well, I don't agree with Adriano Bernard), because AOR in Italy is an almost underground genre that has only been gaining a bit of popularity in recent years thanks to metal magazines (but indeed especially, though not only, among some old-school hard rockers). AOR is a predominantly American genre that dominated half of the American charts in the '80s, but in Italy, the genre's major exponents (Journey) are semi-unknown. The only popular bands that have sold records in Italy are Def Leppard (who are not AOR, but in the late '80s incorporated some AOR sounds) and Bon Jovi (also not strictly AOR). Asia is known among metalheads or those who lived through the '80s; in short, they are semi-unknown. AOR is far from being trash, and bands like House of Lords, Giant, and Journey themselves prove that, but here we delve into personal opinions. Nevertheless, I repeat, you did well to remember the prog past, but a comparison with Yes and company is unfair; it’s normal for Asia to come out defeated, as the musical philosophy of Asia is completely different from that of prog bands. Sorry for the usual length.

Two years ago, when I was more accustomed to these sounds, I remember listening to this album for months. In my opinion, it’s a mistake to compare it to the bands where the various members of Asia played; here, the AOR is quite personal, and many call it pomp-rock. Asia, however, has a unique sound. They might not be to everyone’s taste, but AOR is the opposite of prog; the melodies need to be immediate, the choruses memorable, and the songs rarely should exceed five minutes. Therefore, comparing an Asia album to, say, a Yes album or a King Crimson album from the period when the Asia singer (I don’t remember his name) was performing is quite forced. Nevertheless, it’s a nice album with refined and very beautiful melodies; it’s certainly not a masterpiece, and the melodies belong to a now-past era, but it’s not insufficient. In fact, for me, the best Asia is from the first two albums (those are the most original, at least). Anyway, it’s a charming review, even if a bit long (you admitted that yourself). Rating for the album: 4--

big black!

It's one of those films that, after watching it once and uncovering all the twists, you don't watch again; that's its limitation. However, the first viewing is still very enjoyable—a nice thriller!

In fact, they are not that immediate, precisely because although they play power, they are a particular group that stands out from the clichés of the genre. The first album was a kind of bolt from the blue, in a genre that by now was running out of steam. I don't know this one. However, I read that Lande left the band, and often the singer was the extra boost, far from the typical castrated power vocalists...

kind of blue was the first jazz album I listened to that opened me up to a new kind of music; I can only give it 5, also because it is truly a masterpiece.

x rive: albums that establish some standards of the genre (in this case sad wings of destiny) can never be as complete as the following ones. We agree that an album like paranoid has influenced metal, and yet we know, for instance, that paranoid is very far in sound from "the number of the beast" by iron maiden, so certainly sad wings of destiny is light-years away from the sound of painkiller, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t heavily influenced metal. Black Sabbath aren't even metal, yet they have influenced the genre immensely, while Judas Priest are closer to the concept of metal not just in terms of aesthetics.

Well done, Nero, great review, concise and free from nonsense. The '70s priests are unknown to me, but surely (at least on this, almost everyone seems to agree and I trust it) this is the first 100% metal album in history: attire, iconography, and sound, it has everything that will develop in '80s heavy metal. In short, sooner or later I’ll have to listen to it.

Wait, you’re talking about brutal, and I agree on that. At least from what I’ve listened to, it’s a genre (besides the fact that I don’t like it) filled with copy-paste albums and riffs. There are a few bands that stand out, but they are few in a sea of banality, and I give you that, I say this as a layman. For me, brutal had already said everything back in the '90s, actually, by the end of the previous decade, it was an old genre. Grind, on the other hand, is less self-referential; especially current grind bands, more or less, open themselves up to contamination. To give you an example, there are very few bands that play pure grind, and yet Nasum (I don’t know if you know them) are quite good (and it’s not that they propose something new, but they have a very personal sound).
If your argument also involves all extreme metal, then I don’t agree. If anything, it’s from classic metal that the same old stuff often comes. But extreme metal is in continuous evolution, although indeed the most sensational things came out in the '90s (just think of Atheist, Cynic, or Pestilence, who also used jazz rhythms in their compositions, and even Meshuggah—while their latest work is original, I prefer their earlier stuff). Let’s say that more than extreme metal, it’s the bands that used to play extreme metal that propose the most interesting things (like Arcturus, who played black metal, but in the albums "La Masquerade Infernal" and "The Sham Mirrors," propose something new and very original, which, in fact, not knowing how to categorize it, has been defined avant-garde metal). Anyway, yes, the problem with metal is that so many albums come out each month, and most of them sound déjà vu. There’s a sea of junk, and it’s hard to navigate, but the gems can still be found.

Stoney, certainly the grind more traditional shares almost the same underlying philosophy as punk and hardcore. I mean, everyone knows that you don't need some fancy conservatory degree to play it, but speaking strictly about grindcore, it represented a revolution in the extreme scene in the early '90s with bands like Napalm Death and a few others. If you don't like the extreme, that's fine. Then there are bands like Carcass, who are also technically skilled, and there are those who incorporate fusion-jazz and prog structures into grindcore songs. But if you talk about it in such a disgusted way, you probably don't know these bands. Pure grind is not hard to play because, in the end, it's just hardcore sped up to a thousand with the growl (just to be clear), but in these genres, feeling is often more important than a sterile and cold musical technique. As for the rest, if you listen to Necroticism by Carcass, The Dillinger Escape Plan, or Cephalic Carnage (I'm sure I'm forgetting others), you'll see that technique is not lacking. And anyway, even Brutal Truth's Need to Control is anything but noise blasted at lightning speeds. Moreover, the review, although sparse, doesn’t seem sensationalistic at all as you paint it. Sorry for the lengthy response.