Aletheian - Burnt Offerings
Changed to
Turisas - Battle Metal
OK, finished listening to my long list of new stuff. In case anyone cares, here is a quick breakdown of each one:
Extol - Synergy Another good melo-death/thrash album by Extol. Their second best, imo.
Dark Tranquillity - Character also The Gallery I've decided that I much prefer their later work to their earlier stuff - it has a much more melodic and nicer sound overall. Their earlier stuff doesn't sound half as good (similar to very early In Flames, which wasn't brilliant, musically...) Character is awesome, whereas the Gallery wasn't amazing (same as Skydancer...)
Agalloch - Pale Folklore As I said on another post, I have no idea what this band is trying to do. It's annoying to listen to because they just seem to be a confusing mix of genres. Normally I like experimental stuff, with a blend of styles, but this is just jumbled together. Are they black metal? Are they folk rock? Are they soft rock? It doesn't make any sense. Didn't really enjoy it too much...
Necrophagist - Onset of Putrefecation Love this band! Both this album and
Epitaph are brilliant, showing much skill.
Saviour Machine - Saviour Machine II I read that this band is prog metal. Now they definitely aren't that, but what they are is a sort of piano-heavy, experimental, post-modern version of Pink Floyd. It's weird. Where most rock groups would use guitars as their main melody instrument, these guys use the piano, only using one guitar doing backup riffs and solos. His voice is very rich as well. At first I was a bit like "what?" but then I really got into it by the end of the album, and it is pretty enjoyable.
Horde - Hellig Usvart This album reinforced my thought that I don't really like black metal, as a general rule. The music doesn't really go anywhere and it gets fairly boring. However there are a couple of good tracks on there, and I reckon that I will like it a bit more after a couple more listen-throughs.
Turisas - The Varangian Way Awesome stuff. Think Finntroll meets power metal meets a weird folk/symphonic metal hybrid. It's great. Although I would say that the previous album by them, "Battle Metal" is better.
Aletheian - Dying Vine Fairly bog-standard death metal, nothing outstanding. Goes in my "Meh." pile.
And there you go.