Of my preferred category winners, 4 (avant-garde, x-core, power and sludge) won in the user vote and 12 (ambient, folk, grindcore, meloblack, metalgaze, post-, power, prog, stoner, symphonic, debut and CC) got a staff pick, I wonder if that's the biggest discrepancy that I've had so far

Written by musclassia on 06.03.2022 at 09:52

Of my preferred category winners, 4 (avant-garde, x-core, power and sludge) won in the user vote and 12 (ambient, folk, grindcore, meloblack, metalgaze, post-, power, prog, stoner, symphonic, debut and CC) got a staff pick, I wonder if that's the biggest discrepancy that I've had so far

I got 6 and 12 respectively. It's obvious that Radu hacked everyone's accounts and voted whatever he wanted for the staff picks.

I am very happy we picked Soen, Khirki, Vorvaň, Fallensun, Earthshine, The Lion's Daughter, Spaceslug, and Melancholia.

Nishaiar, Bríi, Funeral Mist, Sermon Of Flames, Funeralium, Vorvaň and Earthshine are well deserving of their victory. Even though I didn't vote for all of them.

I must say I'm a little bit perplexed by Fawn Limbs. Cuz I just have a hard time seeing it as a grindcore album to begin with so its' nomination in that category never sat too well with me.
But oh well. It is a good album.

Written by X-Ray Rod on 06.03.2022 at 12:18

Nishaiar, Bríi, Funeral Mist, Sermon Of Flames, Funeralium, Vorvaň and Earthshine are well deserving of their victory. Even though I didn't vote for all of them.

I must say I'm a little bit perplexed by Fawn Limbs. Cuz I just have a hard time seeing it as a grindcore album to begin with so its' nomination in that category never sat too well with me.
But oh well. It is a good album.

As the person who reviewed it, I feel like it's a (slightly mathy, but less so than previous albums of theirs) grindcore album mixed with a subrosa-esque album, but I feel the grind parts define it more than than dark folky spoken word parts. What would you categorise it into? Considering how flexible we can be with placing genre-hopping albums into other categories (there's quite a lot of black metal/blackgaze on the nishaiar album), it seems like a natural fit in grindcore if we're allowing some flex in what an album needs to be to be classed as grindcore. It's already such a tediously limited genre as it is, an ambitious album like Darwin falls is the only thing that stops me writing it off altogether

I only got 5 votes in common with the staff picks (Ambient, black, death, djent and extreme doom). Maybe six with Metalgaze but I'm not entirely sure if I voted for Earthshine or So Hideous.

Written by musclassia on 06.03.2022 at 14:50
As the person who reviewed it, I feel like it's a (slightly mathy, but less so than previous albums of theirs) grindcore album mixed with a subrosa-esque album, but I feel the grind parts define it more than than dark folky spoken word parts. What would you categorise it into? Considering how flexible we can be with placing genre-hopping albums into other categories (there's quite a lot of black metal/blackgaze on the nishaiar album), it seems like a natural fit in grindcore if we're allowing some flex in what an album needs to be to be classed as grindcore. It's already such a tediously limited genre as it is, an ambitious album like Darwin falls is the only thing that stops me writing it off altogether

Hmm. I don't think there is enough grindcore in this. It's still very mathy and technical during the times it gets aggressive and there is simply too much other stuff inbetween these bursts of agression. Perhaps the Mathcore category would have been better. A part of me wouldn't have any trouble in calling it "avantgarde" but I don't think Fawn Limbs is "weird enough" to land a spot there anyway. So mathcore it would have been for me. Don't get me wrong though. The album is crazy good. I can only be happy for the band getting more recognition and atention. It's still not a big leap of difference. It's not like we put Carcass on grindcore haha.

Btw, this has been one of the most varied grindcore nomination we've had in years most likely. Literally all the albums nominated sound different from one another. So I can't really agree with your last sentence.

Usually I am quite aligned with the staff picks and this year is no different. I also had Soen, Iron Maiden. Zornheym, Nishaiar and Cân Bardd as my picks. Others that I had high up on my short list but didn't pick were Dvne, Hippotraktor, First Fragment, Fallensun, Vildhjarta and Khemmis. And as always there's some staff picks I'm gonna dig deeper into starting with The Lion's Daughter and Khirki respectively.

So once again, nicely done and all respect to the staff for bringing the MS Awards to a satisfactory conclusion. Cheers!

13 of these match my votes, and almost everything else was pretty high up on my list. I just don't understand why people are so taken with these Iron Maiden, Helloween and Unto Others albums

Written by Deadsoulman on 07.03.2022 at 19:15

13 of these match my votes, and almost everything else was pretty high up on my list. I just don't understand why people are so taken with these Iron Maiden, Helloween and Unto Others albums

I'd go with Helloween just as a default given nothing else in power metal really clicked with me last year, and Helloween at least had the amazing Skyfall as a closer. Agree on Unto Others though, never got the hype about their debut and this year they were in the same category as strong albums from StS, Moonspell and Tribulation

I had First Fragment, Ethereal Shroud, and Fallensun as my picks
I also had Cân Bardd and F&J as my category winners not including write-in

I only had 1 of my picks match the overall, so I did much better with the staff picks than I did with the overall

Good picks (especially Zornheym)... Wish I could like Unto Others more, but can't get past him sounding like a gothic Billy Bragg!!!!

Written by musclassia on 07.03.2022 at 22:07

Written by Deadsoulman on 07.03.2022 at 19:15

13 of these match my votes, and almost everything else was pretty high up on my list. I just don't understand why people are so taken with these Iron Maiden, Helloween and Unto Others albums

I'd go with Helloween just as a default given nothing else in power metal really clicked with me last year, and Helloween at least had the amazing Skyfall as a closer. Agree on Unto Others though, never got the hype about their debut and this year they were in the same category as strong albums from StS, Moonspell and Tribulation

Am I the only who thoroughly enjoyed NorthTale's Eternal Flame? That album was amazing! But I honestly didn't like the Helloween either. I wish I could've enjoyed it more, but it just felt like one weak song after another, bar Skyfall, which was tolerable.

Finally got around to comparing my votes and it turns out that I have 10 matches here (ambient, extreme progressive, hard rock, hardcore, melodeath, post, power, progressive, sludge and stoner), but only one match with the MSA results.
I'm not quite sure yet what to do with this insight, but I'm extremely pleased that Khirki, Vorvaň, Fallensun, Moriya and The Lion's Daughter got a little more well-deserved attention due to the staff picks.