Weak sound, ugly guitar tone, subpar songwriting, grating melodies, autotuned singer, little musical vision in the production...

I don't know who picks such bland albums for MSA, but it's always saddening to see one's favorite absent from the list, and this kind of things instead. All genres concerned. The moto is always "true winners are those who listen to the nominees, the find some pearls". Well no.

Written by Ansercanagicus on 03.02.2024 at 12:08

Weak sound, ugly guitar tone, subpar songwriting, grating melodies, autotuned singer, little musical vision in the production...

I don't know who picks such bland albums for MSA, but it's always saddening to see one's favorite absent from the list, and this kind of things instead. All genres concerned. The moto is always "true winners are those who listen to the nominees, the find some pearls". Well no.

Aren't you the musical grinch? Maybe you just need better speakers. And these guys are barely out of high school so this is quite an impressive debut. Productionwise the sound is perfectly fine and there's nothing wrong with the guitar tone either. And there's one song using autotune, the Ozzy inspired ballad "Burning Away" so the autotune is quite fitting for the song. This album is also way more diverse in its songwriting than other more renowned bands that has been doing this for decades. But of course, everyone has the right to their own opinion. Sorry you didn't like the album.

Written by Nejde on 03.02.2024 at 13:57

Aren't you the musical grinch? Maybe you just need better speakers. And these guys are barely out of high school so this is quite an impressive debut. Productionwise the sound is perfectly fine and there's nothing wrong with the guitar tone either. And there's one song using autotune, the Ozzy inspired ballad "Burning Away" so the autotune is quite fitting for the song. This album is also way more diverse in its songwriting than other more renowned bands that has been doing this for decades. But of course, everyone has the right to their own opinion. Sorry you didn't like the album.

Yes I am. I guess overfeeding on music makes me more and more one-dimensionnal. Things click or don't click. I don't think I need better speaker, although I get my comment was unnecessarily harsh about the sound (I could still nitpick some imperfections, like the out of tune intro to Trying Not To Feel, or the hasty fade out of Cruel World). These guys being in highschool made a strong debut and something to be proud of, I agree, not that I care.

I disagree for autotune. Maybe it's not autotune, just compression or filters or chorus or multilayering of voices but it's all over the album and it really sounds like a vocaloid. That's equally coming from the way the singer sings and the production choice made on top of it. Nothing bad in absolute, like I said it doesn't click with me. It sounds like something I'd hear in a supermarket. 'Burning Away' sounds fine, and this is not autotune it's a phaser.

The songwriting might be varied but not impressive. Now that I take time to listen to it more to make my answer I'd say everything's fine. My resent just comes from how personal the MSA nomations work. Staff gather and place their things. Write-ins are bound to lose.

Written by Ansercanagicus on 03.02.2024 at 12:08

Weak sound, ugly guitar tone, subpar songwriting, grating melodies, autotuned singer, little musical vision in the production...

I don't know who picks such bland albums for MSA, but it's always saddening to see one's favorite absent from the list, and this kind of things instead. All genres concerned. The moto is always "true winners are those who listen to the nominees, the find some pearls". Well no.

I thought this was comfortably one of the more enjoyable albums from 2023 as far as heavy/trad albums go - some roughness in the production but compensated by lively and catchy songwriting; as far as that category goes, it's one of the ones I have least interest, but aside from Spirit Adrift (which I was surprised didn't make it), I don't really see any greatly hyped album or 'big' name band with an album out last year that was strong enough for them not being nominated to come across as contrarian (putting something like KK's Priest in would be the definition of nominating an album purely based on name recognition) - which of your favourites in the genre didn't make the cut?

I don't think nominating because of the name or hype is the purpose, they have the top 20 for this already. More like trying to shed light on the invisible stuff

Written by musclassia on 03.02.2024 at 14:48

which of your favourites in the genre didn't make the cut?

It's going to come out as personal and biased as it is, but I would have liked to see
Diamonds Hadder - Beyond The Breakers,
Century - The Conquest Of Time,
Thriller - Street Metal,
Kerrigan - Bloodmoon,
...

In various categories, I'm also surprised not to see :
Liturgy - 93696,
Myrkur - Spine,
Spirit Possession - Of The Sign​.​.​.,
Aviations - Luminaria,
Bekor Qilish - The Flesh Of A New God,
Cypherium - Moral Injury,
Fabricant - Drudge To The Thicket,
Howling Giant - Glass Future,
Menace (GRE) - Open Fire,
Nithing - Agonal Hymns,
Sarmat - Determined To Strike,
Static Abyss - Aborted From Reality,
...

Here for my whims, jokes on me I should have written reviews. (On a side note it would be cool to have a list with all the nominees, so one doesn't have to check for every category possible. This would also help people not writing-in for already nominated bands)

Written by Ansercanagicus on 03.02.2024 at 15:36

I don't think nominating because of the name or hype is the purpose, they have the top 20 for this already. More like trying to shed light on the invisible stuff

[list of bands]

I quite like some of those albums. and even reviewed some them (Aviations, Bekor Qilish, Cypherium, Howling Giant - not that anyone commented on most of those reviews), but by and large, none of them are big names or hyped albums. The only big names in that list are Myrkur (and in reality, Spine, which I also reviewed, isn't a folk metal album) and Liturgy, whose albums pretty reliably split opinion in terms of quality; the rest are fairly niche. That's totally fine, but it makes this an odd complaint: "My resent just comes from how personal the MSA nomations work. Staff gather and place their things. Write-ins are bound to lose."

We're used to getting complaints over not nominating an album from a renowned band, and the disappointment that was voiced in the main MSA discussion thread about Vomitory and Dying Fetus not being nominated in Death was totally fair, considering both had quite a bit of hype elsewhere. But I don't understand how you can resent that the MSAs nominate work based on personal preferences within the staff, when there's no metric other than individual personal preference that would get most of the albums you listed nominated - what alternative do you envisage, other than the MSA nominations being decided by what you pick other than what some other people pick?

And as far as 'winning' is concerned - not only are write-ins bound to lose, but almost every nominee is bound to lose by virtue of not being the biggest name (or the second biggest name, who can win if their album is much better than the most popular band's). For fun, I had a go at predicting the MSA winners last year before the awards went live, and predicted the winner in 20 of 28 nominated categories (26 genres + CCs and Best Debut) - of the remaining 8, 6 came second and two came third. It's just not worth placing that much stock on whether a preferred album wins in the MSAs, cos surprises are very rare (I can only really think of Havukruunu winning folk in 2020, and that was probably partially due to Finntroll and Ensiferum splitting the 'big name' vote). If your favourite album isn't the biggest name in a category, it has as much chance of winning if it's a write-in vs. a nomination, so you might as well write it in if none of the other 10 nominees take your fancy. As far as nominees are concerned, if you don't like one (such as Ritual Fire), then we have no problem with you writing it off as an iffy pick (it's not like I think every album we've nominated is good - my personal Djent category would also include Aviations), but please try not to resent us for not having identical taste to you.