Great Records with $#@% Production

Black Sabbath - Born Again
Megadeth - Killing Is My Business
Nevermore - Enemies of Reality
Sepultura - Schizophrenia
Slayer - Show No Mercy
Metal Church - The Dark
Dark Angel - We Have Arrived
Trouble - Manic Frustration
Suicidal Tendencies - Join the Army

DallasBlack wrote:

I'm half and half on this one. While I admit that the songwriting is as solid as anything they had done before, the mix is just so bad that it's painful to listen to, and thus I can barely give it a proper spin. My least favorite Overkill album.

corplhicks wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

I'm half and half on this one. While I admit that the songwriting is as solid as anything they had done before, the mix is just so bad that it's painful to listen to, and thus I can barely give it a proper spin. My least favorite Overkill album.

Which makes it perfect for this thread.

Eyesore wrote:

Required Fields wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

Here's another.



And it's my favorite Helstar album. =(

You're the first person I've ever heard say that.

Which part, that the production is poopy or that it's my favorite? Haha.

Multiples of Black being your favorite Helstar album, of course.

corplhicks wrote:

I'm half and half on this one. While I admit that the songwriting is as solid as anything they had done before, the mix is just so bad that it's painful to listen to, and thus I can barely give it a proper spin. My least favorite Overkill album.

Do what I do, get this live album:



They perform 7 of the 11 songs from the album. While it's an average-sounding recording at best, it's still much better than the studio album.

Annihilator - Waking The Fury - that buzzing guitar tone is very annoying.

The early Venom records.

Leatherface wrote:

The early Venom records.

I don't know, if the recordings were better it would probably be even more obvious how they could barely play.

Required Fields wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

Required Fields wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

Here's another.



And it's my favorite Helstar album. =(

You're the first person I've ever heard say that.

Which part, that the production is poopy or that it's my favorite? Haha.

Multiples of Black being your favorite Helstar album, of course.

Might be that it was my first Helstar album, but still, I think it's a very underrated album. Yeah, the first few seconds are SUPER cheesy, but besides that I think it's great.

S.D. wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

I'm half and half on this one. While I admit that the songwriting is as solid as anything they had done before, the mix is just so bad that it's painful to listen to, and thus I can barely give it a proper spin. My least favorite Overkill album.

Do what I do, get this live album:



They perform 7 of the 11 songs from the album.  While it's an average-sounding recording at best, it's still much better than the studio album.  

Yeah that's where I really realized the strengths of the WFO songs. Not that I was pleased by over half the album dedicated to one album, but at least it really fleshed them out.

Good call Boris.

I may need to dig out my early Sabbaths again and give them a close listen. It was in seeing positive remarks on those and negative remarks on Blue Oyster Cult records that made me realize my beef may be more stylistic than with the production.

With BOC, I have no qualms about any of their production, but the band is so LARGE (I want to say they actually had 4 guitarists on stage for some numbers live) that any thin or brittle quality to the mix is made up in the arrangement. Likewise, with Sabbath, it's four guys in a room - one of them playing guitar. We have sonic treatments that'll make one guitar sound like an earthquake, but that stuff wasn't really present at the time.

Just a thought. Granted, it's all subjective opinion anyway, but it's something worth revisiting.

Testament's Souls of Black needs a remaster something fierce. It's always the first album that pops into my head whenever this topic comes up.

Good call on that Solitude Aeturnus album Eyesore.

I'm a lucky dude. I am familiar with and like most every album listed in this thread. And I do not see a problem with any of them?

The only album I can think of that I've ever owned where I wished it was recorded better was the second Pretty Boy Floyd album they recorded after Leather Boyz, which was shelved when MCA dumped them and then got released by Perris or whoever in like 2004 or so. If that had the same production as Leather Boyz it'd probably be my second favorite glam metal album, but it sounds only slightly better than all those PBF demos kicking around on questionably released CDs.

S.D. wrote:

Yes, those all suck. Hall Of The Mountain King sounds like you've got cotton balls stuffed in your ears.  

It's just to make you feel like you're THERE. In the HALL! ...of the Mountain Kiiiiiiing... OH YEAH!

Sorry, it was funnier in my head.

ZombieHavoc wrote:

I'm a lucky dude. I am familiar with and like most every album listed in this thread. And I do not see a problem with any of them?

Nothing wrong with that at all. Thinking the sonics and production of an album are ass doesn't mean you're obligated to hate the album. It's more the sense that the record isn't firing on all the cylinders it could be.

The original mix/master of Rush's Vapor Trails is a prime (albeit kind of extreme) example of this. The songs are there and some of the original mix ideas were good too, but it's mastered so damn HOT that you can't comfortably sit through the whole thing without wanting to listen to something that's less of a meat mallet to your ears. Good on the band, of course, for putting out a remix that addressed most of my issues with the original album - even if I would have been quite content to just have the levels of the original mix brought to something less bludgeon-y.

corplhicks wrote:

DallasBlack wrote:

I'm half and half on this one. While I admit that the songwriting is as solid as anything they had done before, the mix is just so bad that it's painful to listen to, and thus I can barely give it a proper spin. My least favorite Overkill album.

I've never found this album to sound bad. I think some of their more recent albums, like Ironbound, sound much worse.