Secular hot takes

Might as well make a separate thread. 

I’ll start:

While they’ve had some good tunes since then (e.g. Scorched was a good album), Overkill took a nose dive after Horrorscope and have never really recovered.

Some bands just seem to make the same album over and over, like (later) Overkill or AC/DC.  I don't get it...is it just to throw new product out there?  Aren't they concerned about diluting their brand?

What I find even stranger is that their fans will say "this is their best album yet!" while I'm rolling my eyes and thinking "this sounds exactly like their last album."  It's like the Emperor's New Clothes in the music realm.

Toxicity by SOAD is the best nu-metal album I know and is better most thrash out there

Agree that SOAD is pretty much the gold standard of nu-metal. Their quirkiness on some songs (like BYOB) reminds me of Tourniquet in a way, despite the difference in style

seth wrote:Agree that SOAD is pretty much the gold standard of nu-metal. Their quirkiness on some songs (like BYOB) reminds me of Tourniquet in a way, despite the difference in style

Yeah, I'd call that their best song (even though it isn't their quirkiest by any means lol), though Toxicity is easily their best album. Thankfully it's also the only one without any f-bombs. They're my best example of "I still listen to this, but I'd listen a lot more if the lyrics were cleaner." I don't mind the language on BYOB much though, as they're discussing a serious issue. But Toxicity doesn't have too much of that (though I still usually don't listen to Bounce, at least not more than the intro).

The four levels of objecting to lyrical content and loving the music are
"I object to some of the lyrics, but not really enough to make me listen less" (Best example: Metallica)
"Some songs I'll avoid, but most are completely fine" (Megadeth)
Already explained level three, which is SOAD (side note, I do really like bands like SOAD and Tourniquet that do creative things.)
And level four would be Slayer, which is "I love the music, but I mainly avoid listening due to the lyrical content."

I don’t really mind the lyrics of BYOB, primarily because I agree with the overall message, and the f-bombs seem more for emphasis than trying to be crude (still could have done without them however). Although some other SOAD songs are much more lyrically questionable

seth wrote:I don’t really mind the lyrics of BYOB, primarily because I agree with the overall message, and the f-bombs seem more for emphasis than trying to be crude (still could have done without them however). Although some other SOAD songs are more lyrically questionable

Exactly my point. When songs use language for emphasis I don't care too much (though I wouldn't have done it myself). Bounce, Marmalade, Cigaro, and She's Like Heroin are some of the more questionable ones (though Cigaro is kind of funny, and I don't even like SLH that much musically so I don't really care)

No nu metal is better than good thrash.

Dave and Marty were the best guitar duo in thrash and in most of all metal.

^^ agree with the last two comments.

It's canon.

No I love the fact acdc stick to their guns and produce the same album over and again but with new hooks and songs in exactly the same style. Power up by acdc (a later album post Malcom) has quite a few different, subtle elements creeping in, almost a pop-ish thing going on in the production, a smoother sound with some almost, foo fight-ish chord things happening here and there, just splashes of it.

It's a great album.

My hot take: OverKill suck because the vocalist is yet another gonzo singer in thrash (perhaps the worst). This is why I hate a lot of thrash the vocals kill most of it.

Black Rider wrote:No nu metal is better than good thrash.

Some songs on there (like Jet Pilot) are very fast, even though I still wouldn't call them thrash. Btw, have you heard much of Toxicity?

Black Rider wrote:Dave and Marty were the best guitar duo in thrash and in most of all metal.

Can't really argue with that. While I prefer Metallica overall, Megadeth does have better guitar playing. Riff-wise, not sure, but solo-wise, yes.

Although SOAD are quite good, I’ve gotta agree with Black Rider, good thrash beats the crap out of any nu-metal I’ve ever heard

seth wrote:Although SOAD are quite good, I’ve gotta agree with Black Rider, good thrash beats the crap out of any nu-metal I’ve ever heard

I agree for the most part, even Toxicity doesn't compare to Weapons, RiP, or especially Metallica's trilogy (RtL, MoP, and AJFA). But as far as most thrash, I think it's up there. Maybe not SOAD as a whole, but that album + BYOB (though BYOB is probably their thrashiest song) is close.

Yeah I’d say if you took the best example of almost any genre, it would beat a large portion of mediocre and bad examples of pretty much any other genre, even if the other genre has much higher highs. Exceptions to this rule do exist however, such as grindcore and mumble rap

The vocals are what kill SOAD for me. The only songs I can get into are Aerials and Old School Hollywood.

Dustofyears wrote:This is why I hate a lot of thrash the vocals kill most of it.

But. You’re. A. Vengeance. Rising. Fan.

WildWorld wrote:The vocals are what kill SOAD for me. The only songs I can get into are Aerials and Old School Hollywood.

Aerials is an amazing song.

Pethead wrote:

Dustofyears wrote:This is why I hate a lot of thrash the vocals kill most of it.

But. You’re. A. Vengeance. Rising. Fan.

Lolz yeah but roger's more kermit on roids (at least on White throne give it a listen and tell me that's not kermit losing the plot) and various other muppets on roids yelling into a mic. The only muppet I don't like the sound of yelling into a mic is GOnzo lolz.

StevenCressler wrote:

WildWorld wrote:The vocals are what kill SOAD for me. The only songs I can get into are Aerials and Old School Hollywood.

Aerials is an amazing song.

One of the cover bands I was in for a few years covered quite a lot of SOAD. We were lucky enough to have a really great heavy rock drummer who knew tons of heavy rock and metal stuff so could cover lots of different stuff from Slyer to cannibal corpse to pantera and soad and everything in between. Good times.

StevenCressler wrote:

Black Rider wrote:No nu metal is better than good thrash.

Some songs on there (like Jet Pilot) are very fast, even though I still wouldn't call them thrash. Btw, have you heard much of Toxicity?

I see SOAD as a crossover nu-metal thrash band. Or at least Toxicity is a nu-metal thrash crossover album. I don't know any other "nu-metal" band that has even close the amount of thrash drumming and thrash riffs Toxicity has. They rarely have any parts like that.

I would probably call SOAD more like an avantgarde metal band as it's not really that much nu-metal either. As far as I recall the only real 100% nu-metal moment in the Toxicity album is in the song X starting at 1:20. That's the style of nu-metal I don't care at all and is probably my least liked part of the whole album. The rest of the song is a weird hybrid of doom, alternative, thrash, hardcore punk.

Science, by the way, is lyrically pretty interesting as it's a secular metal band being anti-science and pro-spirituality. That was very rare around that time with scientism and new atheism on the rise. Some say Serj is just pretending to be a "bad preacher" who is mocking science and that it should be taken ironically as people still seem to think that a metal artist can't be spiritual, but he has explained his spiritual beliefs a bit in different interviews. He dislikes the word God, but likes to use the word Creator and the line "spirit moves through all things" instead to describe God. He seems to be one of those whose spiritual beliefs are a mixture of different religions including Christianity, and definitely believes in a creator and a soul. So the lyrics of Science are actually to be taken at face value instead of an ironic mockery of religion. While he is not an actual Christian he still seems to appreciate Christianity because of its history in Armenia and keeping Armenians together and preserving the Armenian culture when all sorts of other religions were hostile towards Armenia. In any case around the time Toxicity was released it was pretty rare for any secular metal band to be critical towards science or that they have any spiritual/religious beliefs.

Jet Pilot is one of my favorites on that album. The chorus reminds me of the fast thrash part between the verse and chorus in Tourniquet's Pathogenic Ocular Dissonance. And Science reminds me of Tourniquet's Restoring the Locust Years.

If Tourniquet would've continued with the sound and style of the new tracks on The Collected Works (Perfect Night for a Hanging & The Hand Trembler) and combined that to the Crawl to China songs like Proprioception (minus the blues intro and outro), Tire Kicking and Stumblefoot, it would've been close to what System of a Down have done.
It's really not that far off to compare SOAD with Tourniquet. They have some of the same melodic sensibilities Tourniquet had and same type of attention to heavy thrashy groove.

StevenCressler wrote:

Black Rider wrote:Dave and Marty were the best guitar duo in thrash and in most of all metal.

Can't really argue with that. While I prefer Metallica overall, Megadeth does have better guitar playing. Riff-wise, not sure, but solo-wise, yes.

I prefer Metallica’s riffing style, but Dave and Marty are insane together. RiP is a masterpiece.

Grace Under Pressure is just as good a Rush album as A Farewell To Kings and Hemispheres.  And it is better than the first three (Rush, Caress of Steel, Fly By Night).  It has amazing production values and a wide breadth of emotions with brilliant muscianship displayed in many instances (just not as much showmanship in the past).  The songs will stick with you and pop in your unexpectedly to haunt you throughout the day.  However, it is downhill after that album with highlights here and there.