"Run of the mill" albums

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Cochino
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"Run of the mill" albums

Post by Cochino »

I recently came across Flacman's Port only LP "Afterlife", and I can recognize it's just an ok album. Nothing too remarkable or memorable about it, and I certainly wouldn't put it in any sort of top list but for some reason I've been going back to listen to it quite often for the past few days. Something similar happens to me with Savage Thrust's "Eat 'Em Raw". An ok album with nothing too special going on but I also keep coming back to it, probably even more than some classic Thrash albums. And it's not as with other bands or albums that are considered mediocre or forgettable by most, but I love them for personal reasons. These I absolutely recognize as "just ok", and I can't really tell why I enjoy them so much.
Do any of you also have any middle of the road albums that you just keep coming back to, without really knowing why?
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bigfootkit
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by bigfootkit »

Lol, interesting/amusing topic for a thread.
The one that instantly comes to mind is The Hookers 'Hookers II : Black Visions Of Crimson Wisdom', which i've absolutely loved from the very first time i heard it, despite the fact that i absolutely recognize that there's nothing truly unique or exceptional about the individual songs or the playing.
The order of the songs, the pacing, the dynamics, the production & the mood however just work perfectly for me. There's nothing you could change about any element of that record that would make me enjoy it any more than i already do.
The planets are just perfectly aligned. Lightning captured in a bottle, where the whole is somehow greater than it's individual parts.
There isn't another record in their discography that matches that album in my estimation, (though 'Equinox Beyond Tomorrow' comes close), however i kept right on buying them, (with no regrets), in the hope that one day they might reach that height again, but it wasn't to be.
They'll always have a special place in my (metal) heart though, as it's better to have completely nailed it just once than to have never come close, even if, intellectually, i must accept it's intrinsic 'run of the mill'-ness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lnl-HH3 ... HzUYTyyFV2
Last edited by bigfootkit on Wed Jun 12, 2019 3:36 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Cochino
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by Cochino »

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Albums that your brain can detect as derivative, or just middle of the road "just ok" stuff that you've already listened to dozens of times, but still somehow manage to emotionally connect with you in the same way an actually good album does.
Sometimes this might be determined by when you listen to an album. I'm gonna lose everybody on this board with this example, but I was kinda surprised when I found out that Cannibal Corpse's "Gore Obssessed" album was actually considered a weaker one by many people. It was one of the first albums I heard from the band, since it was the newest one at the time, and also one of the first Death Metal albums I've ever listened to, so I loved the shit out of it and still enjoy it a lot to this day but nowadays I can see why people who were actually following the band at the time would be underwhelmed by it since it was pretty much the same they had been doing since the vocalist change. But the lack of context allowed me to judge it "in a vaccum" so to speak, and I really liked the riffs and the tracks on their own merits, so I can still have a good time listening to it nowadays.
However, those albums I mentioned on the first post (Savage Thrust and Flacman's Port), I heard when I already knew better, yet for some reason they still managed to hook me. I'm trying to come up with a couple more examples of my own but most of them actually do have certain idiosyncratic characteristics that you can't really find in any other bands or albums, so I think that even if they're not really appreciated by most people and are hardly classics, they don't quite fit in the same category. Dresden's "Too Many Skeletons" or Bootleg's "W.C. Monster", for instance. I know most people don't particulary care about those, but I'll defend them with tooth and nail as actually great, or at least "unique" albums.
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by doomedplanet »

No one talks about Entophyte - End of Society's Sanity (1992). Maybe it is average, I don't know. Personally I love it and I can listen to this album I consider a minor masterpiece and really enjoy it every time. Never met anyone else saying that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Z5Q9S ... EhswOpOQoE
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Cochino
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by Cochino »

doomedplanet wrote: Mon Jun 10, 2019 5:16 pm No one talks about Entophyte - End of Society's Sanity (1992). Maybe it is average, I don't know. Personally I love it and I can listen to this album I consider a minor masterpiece and really enjoy it every time. Never met anyone else saying that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-Z5Q9S ... EhswOpOQoE
Well, this sounds like a rather unique blend of classic Thrash with the 90s alternative trend. Not my thing at all, but if you're into that, I can see why you would like it because I don't think there are many bands that sound like that. They either went one way or the other, but this one seems to walk right down the middle between old school and "modern" 90s Metal.
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

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Cochino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:09 am Sometimes this might be determined by when you listen to an album. I'm gonna lose everybody on this board with this example, but I was kinda surprised when I found out that Cannibal Corpse's "Gore Obssessed" album was actually considered a weaker one by many people. It was one of the first albums I heard from the band, since it was the newest one at the time, and also one of the first Death Metal albums I've ever listened to, so I loved the shit out of it and still enjoy it a lot to this day but nowadays I can see why people who were actually following the band at the time would be underwhelmed by it since it was pretty much the same they had been doing since the vocalist change. But the lack of context allowed me to judge it "in a vaccum" so to speak, and I really liked the riffs and the tracks on their own merits, so I can still have a good time listening to it nowadays.
This absolutely chimes with & explains perfectly my feelings about Riot's 'Thundersteel', although i'm coming at it from the complete opposite direction & prevailing thought on that one.
As someone who was a longtime Riot fan already when that record came out it was a huge disappointment to me because of their huge directional change & the fact that Mark Reale aside, the line up was unrecognisable as the Riot i'd known & loved.
I concede completely that if they'd put it out as a 'Narita' record as they'd planned or under some other name, i'd likely have got into it straight away, but the heart completely overruled the head & i still can't embrace it the way i probably should because of that initaial shock that this wasn't my Riot anymore. It's absolutely emotion over intellect, but apparently there's nothing that i can do to completely redress that balance in my response to that record despite the distance of the years.
An inherent 'grudge' that's over 3 decades old now? That's a response that's both pathetic and impressive.
:lol:
It just goes to show that so many disparate elements come into play when evaluating music & it's almost impossible not to be influenced by something outside of the actual listening experience when evaluating your feelings about any record.
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Cochino
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by Cochino »

Yeah, that also explains why so many times I enjoy knockoff/influenced/ripoff albums more than the originals. Happens a lot to me with Motörhead, for instance. I love Motörhead of course, but I find their albums tend to be weighed down by filler tracks that just go through the motions to get to the LP length, while I enjoy albums like Tank's Filth Hounds of Hades a lot more than most Motörhead full lengths, simply because it's packed with great, catchy and memorable songs. I wouldn't say Tank is better than Motörhead in any way, but I still end up playing that album more than pretty much anything by Lemmy and the boys.
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by bigfootkit »

Cochino wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 6:38 pm Yeah, that also explains why so many times I enjoy knockoff/influenced/ripoff albums more than the originals. Happens a lot to me with Motörhead, for instance. I love Motörhead of course, but I find their albums tend to be weighed down by filler tracks that just go through the motions to get to the LP length, while I enjoy albums like Tank's Filth Hounds of Hades a lot more than most Motörhead full lengths, simply because it's packed with great, catchy and memorable songs. I wouldn't say Tank is better than Motörhead in any way, but I still end up playing that album more than pretty much anything by Lemmy and the boys.
That's a great example, and i totally agree, Tank knocked it out of the park on that 1st record, and though there are inspired moments throughout their discog they just couldn't maintain the high standard they'd set for themselves on that debut.
Motörhead's studio records on the other hand, were always consistently inconsistent. On a pass/fail basis however, most remained firmly on the positive side of that divide & even their lesser records generally held a couple of gems.
That meant they could consistently mix up their live set with different material down the years without any dip in quality ensuring that they always remained relevant instead of becoming just another heritage/nostalgia act.
That was no mean feat, hats off to ya Mr. Kilmister.
Of course in 'No Sleep 'til Hammersmith' they did make the 'perfect' Motörhead album, & it's absolutely fitting that the ultimate road dog band's finest hour was a live record. Even all these years later it remains an exhilarating lesson in ferocious feral rock 'n' roll as played by those people your parents warned you about.
It's arguably also the last of the great live albums in the grand 70's lineage, but that's perhaps a discussion best saved for a separate thread.
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Cochino
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by Cochino »

Yeah, I didn't mean to say Motörhead's albums aren't good, since in most cases the good tracks outweigh the filler and the weakest tracks are just that, fillers. I don't really remember any true stinkers by Motörhead when it comes to either songs or albums, but I don't think they have that perfect album in their discography in the way that Black Sabbath or Judas Priest (the only other two bands that can be compared to Motörhead, in my opinion) do, even though they probably kept adding classics to their repertoire on a more steady basis than either Sabbath or Priest, who went through some rather dark periods in their careers.
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by nightsblood »

A couple that I may have mentioned in previous threads:

Stormwarrior- they rehash a lot of old Helloween (Walls-era) and Running WIld, but I have no problem listening to their albums over and over.

Orchid- 'Capricorn'. Blatant rip-off of early Black Sabbath. It's not a milestone in doom in any way, but for whatever reason the CD stayed in my car for years and would often get re-played. Just hit that sweet spot of good + fun to listen to.
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by great_knuthulhu »

bigfootkit wrote: Mon Jul 01, 2019 6:43 am
Cochino wrote: Sun Jun 09, 2019 8:09 am Sometimes this might be determined by when you listen to an album. I'm gonna lose everybody on this board with this example, but I was kinda surprised when I found out that Cannibal Corpse's "Gore Obssessed" album was actually considered a weaker one by many people. It was one of the first albums I heard from the band, since it was the newest one at the time, and also one of the first Death Metal albums I've ever listened to, so I loved the shit out of it and still enjoy it a lot to this day but nowadays I can see why people who were actually following the band at the time would be underwhelmed by it since it was pretty much the same they had been doing since the vocalist change. But the lack of context allowed me to judge it "in a vaccum" so to speak, and I really liked the riffs and the tracks on their own merits, so I can still have a good time listening to it nowadays.
This absolutely chimes with & explains perfectly my feelings about Riot's 'Thundersteel', although i'm coming at it from the complete opposite direction & prevailing thought on that one.
As someone who was a longtime Riot fan already when that record came out it was a huge disappointment to me because of their huge directional change & the fact that Mark Reale aside, the line up was unrecognisable as the Riot i'd known & loved.
I concede completely that if they'd put it out as a 'Narita' record as they'd planned or under some other name, i'd likely have got into it straight away, but the heart completely overruled the head & i still can't embrace it the way i probably should because of that initaial shock that this wasn't my Riot anymore. It's absolutely emotion over intellect, but apparently there's nothing that i can do to completely redress that balance in my response to that record despite the distance of the years.
An inherent 'grudge' that's over 3 decades old now? That's a response that's both pathetic and impressive.
:lol:
It just goes to show that so many disparate elements come into play when evaluating music & it's almost impossible not to be influenced by something outside of the actual listening experience when evaluating your feelings about any record.
Re: Thundersteel - I had the same feelings about that album Kit, but I actually overcame it some years after and decided it was actually great. The earlier Riot albums do still occupy a special place in my (metal) heart and their position is probably stronger now than ever. It may be a sentimental thing as I am approaching old age ;)
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

Post by Cochino »

Well, I just remembered another album that would fit what I meant with this thread and it's Attila's Rolling Thunder. There's no real reason for me to listen to this so much more than many classics, yet I keep coming back to it over and over again. It might be more remarkable than some of the other examples given, but in my case it's still one of those cases where I listen to it way more than records and bands that are way bigger.
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Re: "Run of the mill" albums

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great_knuthulhu wrote: Mon Jul 29, 2019 12:14 pm Re: Thundersteel - I had the same feelings about that album Kit, but I actually overcame it some years after and decided it was actually great. The earlier Riot albums do still occupy a special place in my (metal) heart and their position is probably stronger now than ever. It may be a sentimental thing as I am approaching old age ;)
Knuthulu, you're obviously a more forgiving, less petty & far better rounded person than i am coz it looks unlikely that i'll ever get over my initial gut reaction to Thundersteel even though i 'm well aware my 'grudge' toward it is utterly irrational at this point.
It was though somewhat reassuring to finally discover someone else who shared the same feeling of disenfranchisement upon Thundersteel's release that i did, at least initially. We must be of a similar vintage.
Having said all that, music is supposed to provoke strong reactions, so i'm not reallythat apologetic about my position, just a little irritated at that self-sabotaging part of myself that can't/won't let it go & allow me to finally hear the record with an unbiased ear.
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