Suffering so you don't have to!
Metalcatto
The year is 2001. A new era of world terrorism falls upon the world. China joins the World Trade Organization. The Second Intifada is taking place. And there’s no smartphone in sight. Right, I’ve gotten carried away again. The Metal was spectacular—we got timeless classics from Opeth, Tool, Converge, and System of a Down. However, we’re not going to dig even deeper into the underground. We’re going to talk about Emperor‘s Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise.
Metalcatto
This review is dedicated to Patrick, one of our patrons. It was his pick. Thanks.
The year is 2005. Hurricane Katrina ravages New Orleans. London suffers a horrible terrorist attack. YouTube is launched. So is the Xbox 360. Yes. Right, the Metal. I almost forgot. It was an insanely strong year, to be fair. Something like a silver age, with Nile, Opeth, Arch Enemy, and Pelican releasing timeless classics. But today we’re going to talk about a criminally underrated gem: Between The Buried and Me‘s Alaska.
Vicky
To start things on a more depressing note, this album is close to three decades of existence, being released in 1996. The year itself was absolutely remarkable for the Metal industry, with new material from My Dying Bride (Like Gods of the Sun), Opeth (Morningrise), Sepultura (Roots), Cradle of Filth (Dusk… and Her Embrace), Hypocrisy (Abducted), Type O Negative (October Rust), Rage (Lingua Mortis and then End of All Days), Therion (Theli), The 3rd and the Mortal (Painting on Glass), Napalm Death (Diatribes), Pantera (The Great Southern Trendkill), and other albums that are less praised but also important for the Metal world, by Moonspell, Stratovarius, Tool, Warrant, Zakk Wylde, Marilyn Manson, Slayer, Slipknot, Staind, Stone Temple Pilots, and the band of Sakis and Themis Tolis. So, as you may notice, this was one of the best years to be alive.
Milo Lane
As a fan of all things retro, there had to come a time for my first ever retro-review — late as usual, but that just means the album had more time to become retro, don’t you think?
Pegah
Sometimes a bond forms between you and an album that feels utterly singular—something that can’t be replicated, only forged through endless replays of the same tracks. For me, Monotony Fields became exactly that: one of the most influential records in guiding me toward the realm of Funeral Doom. The summer of 2016 was steeped in the soundscapes Shape of Despair summoned from the depths of darkness, and even now, each listen evokes emotions that their later work has never been able to recreate.
Welcome to Retro-Reviews, a space where I indulge in my own nostalgic reveries, reminiscing about a time that never truly existed, but one that I’ve crafted through various random albums that hold significance for me. Whether good or bad, one thing is certain: remembering can be a bittersweet journey.
Vicky
We are in April 2005, and After Forever gave birth to a new band about three years prior. They called themselves Sahara Dust, and then they changed their name to Epica. In 2005, the world witnessed the birth of Dark Tranquillity’s Character, HammerFall’s Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken, Kamelot’s The Black Halo, Galneryus’s Advance to the Fall, and Metalium’s Demons of Insanity – Chapter Five, to name a few. In the non-Metal world, astronomers discovered the dwarf planet Eris (one of the largest dwarf planets in our solar system), YouTube was born, and Yahoo! was the most popular website out there… Good times. Well, those good times would come to an end in August, with the devastation brought by Hurricane Katrina, but that is a bit irrelevant to the Epica masterpiece I want to review.
Elyna Kahn
Today’s journey takes us back to 2010, a year marked by a memorable musical landscape. Epic albums like The Wicked Symphony by Avantasia, At the Edge of Time by Blind Guardian, What Lies Beneath by Tarja Turunen, and The Frozen Tears of an Angel by Rhapsody of Fire emerged, becoming essential cornerstones in Power/Symphonic Metal. At the same time, 2010 saw devastating natural disasters. On February 27th, a massive 8.8 magnitude earthquake followed by a mega tsunami claimed hundreds of lives in Chile. Just two weeks later, Japan was struck by another powerful earthquake, leaving destruction in its wake.
Hi there! I know I usually kick off this section with a paragraph about the tragic loss of “happier” times, but today, we have a new writer debuting. The spotlight’s on them! Welcome the Stargazer Scholar (find them here!). So, be nice on social media, or I’ll find you…
Welcome to Retro-Reviews, a space where I indulge in my own nostalgic reveries, reminiscing about a time that never truly existed, but one that I’ve crafted through various random albums that hold significance for me. Whether good or bad, one thing is certain: remembering can be a bittersweet journey.
Metal Eclipse Reviews 