hey, you have an educated opinion on this type of death metal - what do you think of the new Destruktor album....im on the fence and i need a second opinion. I'm not sure if it will make my 2015 list, but everyone else on my friends list seems to like it. and since you are my freind, but havent rated it, yet...it seemed logical... what should i do, lol.

Thanks! :D

I thought I might as well review something since I wasn't doing anything tonight and my last review was from May, heh.

i knew you would have an articulate opinion, thanks. and the reason i asked you is because ive seen your reviews of somewhat old school death albums, and we mostly agree entirely, so i thought i would see what it meant to you. i was teetering on giving it a 3, but i think i will move it to a 3.5 so that it can be added to my 2015 list, which you should check out btw. we may disagree on some things, but you may find some shit on there to love. cant hurt, right?

surprised and pleased that you liked dir en grey

in my opinion probably the only really great band to come out of nu-metal

definitely check out the 2 albums DEG did after Uroboros. Dum Spiro Spero has a lot of deathcore influence but some fantastic ballads like Vanitas, a weird death-doom track (The Blossoming Beelzebub) and another 9-minute track Diabolos. Arche is... possibly my favorite album of theirs, it's much more subdued than the previous 2 but has some amazing guitar solos and (as expected) an unreal vocal performance.

Alhambra are real good, I think I may like the bassist's other band Light Bringer more though. Scenes of Infinity is a fantastic album, with probably the best female vocalist I've heard in metal.

Interesting how your ratings have gotten more and more critical over the years whilst I’ve… gotten the opposite that I was back in the “metal forum days”. That said, I do miss our consistent conversations so I guess our vast difference of opinion is a good one as any. What have you enjoyed the most out of 2015 so far?

Not going to lie but it drives me up the wall when I check on the ratings of stuff I love to see you slamming it pretty hard, haha. Like I remember this one time recently I was re-listening to Ayreon and there is a snarky one-line microreview that breaks my heeeeeeart. All jokes aside, I don’t know how your music perception goes these days so I find myself scratching my head a lot.

Everything I threw on my Year in Review list is stuff I enjoyed to a consistent basis (if you look at my track reviews, you can deduce how my ratings work). Not sure what to recommend to you but a good portion of my year end list resonates with me pretty strongly and it’d be great for more people to take a listen or two.

I'm doing, uh, as decently as could be hoped considering the depths of insanity the world has descended into this year. My majors courses are fucking hard but rewarding, and outside of not having a source of income I'm honestly enjoying my life right now.