The Great Collection Rediscovery

Album: The Silent Enigma

Old Rating: 4/5

Verdict: Anathema's brand of death-doom still isn't up there with my favourites of the genre, but this one is the best yet. Actually this is it for their death-doom, so it is the best one. A keeper. 

New Rating: No Change. 

Album: The End of Life

Old Rating: 3.5/5

Verdict: Given its cover, this is the type of metal album that sounds exactly like you'll expect it to: lumped into gothic and/or symphonic metal but being a far cry from what those genres are supposed to sound like and instead probably owes more to alternative metal. However, it actually doesn't suck. The vocalist has a good voice. The songs are a bit poppy but as far as this schtick goes it's more than passable and there's a few genuinely really good ones. Lasting recollection of this album with me has a bad track record, so I thought this was going straight to the sale pile, but turns out it's a keeper. 

New Rating: No Change. 

Album: The Way of the Berserker

Old Rating: 4/5

Verdict: An ebay pickup when I had a mad rush to add some pagan black metal to my collection - any pagan black metal I could get my hands on - and this is one of a few I ended up with. It's okay, just nothing too special. A keeper, but not something to drag out too often. 

New Rating: 3.5/5

Album: A Fine Day to Exit

Old Rating: 3/5

Verdict: While I was honestly expecting to come away from later Anathema putting them down as obvious ones not to keep, this one has proved a pleasant surprise. It's certainly not my usual sort of music, but I really liked this one! Very pleasant album. Not really MMA relevant if they didn't have death-doom stuff from earlier on, but it'll do me.

New Rating: 4/5

Album: V: The New Mythology Suite

Old Rating: 4.5/5

Verdict: A bit different in vibe to the previous two Symphony X albums and for me represents a slight step down (I still don't understand anyone who thinks Twilight in Olympus is a blip in their discography), but this is the golden age of Symphony X and that means this one is still pretty essential listening.

New Rating: No Change. 

Album: The Odyssey

Old Rating: 4.5/5

Verdict: I really dig this one from Symphony X. I haven't played it as much as Twilight in Olympus, partly through having it a shorter time, but I think The Odyssey is one of Symphony X's best albums. A record that goes up in my estimations with every spin.

New Rating: 5/5

Album(s): The Sea Which Has Become Known, An Extraconscious Lucidity, Phobos Monolith & Luminiferous Aether

Old Rating(s): 4/5, 4.5/5, 5/5 & 5/5

Verdict: Since I binged all four of these in one go today I decided to write up a bulk entry, though I'll still do separate ones for the Mare Cognitum splits that I own. 

Mare Cognitum is among my favourite black metal acts. A big part of which that is is on the most recent two albums Phobos Monolith and Luminiferous Aether, which are both absolute beasts, along with the two splits with Spectral Lore. The first two records have the project more finding its feet but both are still really solid atmospheric black metal. It's very easy to listen to all four records in one go, as it only amounts to a total of 20 tracks totalling just over three hours. There are far worse ways to spend a morning, I assure you. 

I expect this won't be the only time these get spun this month in the build up to the release of fifth studio album Solar Paroxysm. 

New Ratings: No Changes. 

Album: Anthems of Rebellion

Old Rating: 3.5/5

Verdict: Arch Enemy were among the first extreme metal bands I discovered all those years ago and it was the song Silent Wars from this album that I first heard from them, although the first album I actually bought by them was, I think, Doomsday Machine. Initially I was drawn to bands like them and Trivium, who were using harsh vocals (the local term among fledgling headbangers was 'guttural' - it was many years before I ever encountered the term death growl/grunt), through their guitar work. I found these bands through the magazine Total Guitar after all and TG had a real thing about these two bands - actually, for a magazine that was meant to focus on the guitar players they sure made a real big deal out of Arch Enemy having a female vocalist. I suppose in extreme metal that was less heard of back then, but they were still supposed to be a guitar magazine. One particularly cringeworthy article I recall being decorated with the tagline: A girl with balls. 

These days, I return to Arch Enemy much more often than Trivium, but I look back on them as a rather patchy band full of ups and downs. Anthems of Rebellion is, in my view, a pretty decent album, but I can never bring myself to change it's rating higher than it already is, because I know that when this band is at their best, they make an absolutely killer melodic death metal record. And that doesn't describe Anthems of Rebellion, although it's also far from their weakest record. 

New Rating: No Change.  

She's really not though (she can actually sing for a start). But that doesn't mean Arch Enemy have made best use of what she can do.