We talk a lot about songwriting, tone, melody, and riffs here, but don’t often devote much time to the actual sonics of great albums. Or at least when we do, it’s usually concise (I go by my familiarity with certain engineers’ work as a rubric), because it’s really difficult to talk about production divorced from the actual songs.
So we put members of Exodus, Gorguts, Candiria, Magrudergrind, the Sword, and more, under the gun, and had them explain what their favorite sounding-albums of all time are. Check out their picks below:
J. Ess / February 22, 2016 7:11 pm
A couple albums come to mind:
Converge – Jane Doe
Isis – Celestial
The Atomic Bomb Audition – Roots Into The Sea
I think the common thread here is great drum and bass sounds cementing the mix.
Non-metal pick: Stars of The Lid – And Their Refinement Of The Decline
/
EsEhKa / February 23, 2016 2:52 am
Opeth: Their albums past 2000
Tool – 10,000 Days
Corpsessed – Abysmal Threshhold
Cynic: Every album
Bloodbath – The Fathomless Mastery
Fleshgod Apocalypse: Every album
Meshuggah: Everything past 1998
Mastodon: Every album past Remission
/
lol / February 23, 2016 9:59 am
fleshgod albums sound like shit
/
Derek Faircloth / February 23, 2016 9:06 am
Thy Art is Murder – Hate
Everything on that album is perfectly constructed and mixed.
/
Edoardo del Principe / February 23, 2016 11:34 am
This is not true, that album is the demonstration of how bad a producer can work with no bass line, over the top snare sound and medium frequences. I like the song but it sounds really fake, I appreciated more the previous records, more raw but extremly into a “Death Metal” sound
/
Adam Völgyesi / February 23, 2016 9:38 am
that would be either The Great Southern Trendkill or Slaughter of the Soul.
/
Óśćáŕ / February 23, 2016 10:20 am
Son of Aurelius – Under a Western Sun
Elder – Lore
Wrvth – S/T
/
TwoSugarsTaylor / February 23, 2016 11:01 am
Everything on The Anthropocene Extinction by Cattle Decapitation is absolutely perfect. The mix, the sound of the guitars, everything.
/
Fuzius / April 6, 2016 8:31 pm
yeah I love that album too, the production is unique
/
LeJu / February 23, 2016 11:25 am
That’s not metal material but for me, the first album of Nine Black Alps “Everything is” is just perfect on every single point. But for a metal record I would say Meshuggah’s Chaosphere.
/
Edoardo del Principe / February 23, 2016 11:32 am
The Ocean’s Helio/Anthropocentric have the best sound in metal albums in the last 15 years, maybe The Sun that Never Sets is equal in “awesomeness”
/
Megadead / February 23, 2016 11:54 am
Probably no one will agree, but Megadeth’s Endgame is a fucking production masterpiece. Also I love how the last At the Gates album sounds.
/
You Don't Know Me / February 23, 2016 12:28 pm
Non-metal: Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon has hands down my favorite production of any album I’ve ever heard. Everything is so clean but not sterile and everything is just mixed perfectly in a way that everything compliments everything else. Radiohead’s Kid A get an honorable mention for the same reason.
Metal is a tough one but I’d have to go for either Stag by the Melvins, Mastodon’s Crack the Skye, or any Opeth record since Deliverance/Damnation. All of those records just balance everything so perfectly and have some killer guitar tones to boot.
/
FatoldBaron / March 1, 2016 5:36 am
today one guy does the hole Post production mixing etc.! Darkside toke 18 people to engineer until its final stage. i think some of magic have died a little in music making.
/
Chester Cheesecake / February 23, 2016 2:27 pm
Death- Human
Carcass- Heartwork
Cynic- All of it
Megadeth- Rust in Peace
Boris- Feedbacker
Anything Kurt Ballou does, special mentions to You Fail Me and De Vermis Mysteriis
/
Grawmps / February 23, 2016 4:16 pm
Any of the classic yacht rock albums (early Toto, Ambrosia) would qualify here.
/
LiquidFire / February 23, 2016 5:09 pm
Tesseract – Polaris
/
Guy / February 23, 2016 7:05 pm
Vallenfyre – Splinters
At The Gates – Slaughter Of The Soul
Amiensus – Ascension
Devin Townsend Project – Addicted
Also the new Fallujah record will probably be up there
/
Ross Huddleston / February 23, 2016 7:16 pm
I would have to go with either Katatonia – Dead End Kings, Gojira – From Mars To Sirius, or Soilwork – Stabbing The Drama for my choices… not that anybody cares.
/
MushTheMan / February 23, 2016 10:19 pm
Stabbing The Drama is one of my favorite albums
/
twincher / February 24, 2016 3:17 am
Agreed. Katatonia makes some great sounding albums… not so much the early stuff though
/
Jimmiedbainter / February 26, 2016 1:05 pm
❝my .friend’s mate Is getting 98$. HOURLY. on the internet.”….two days ago new McLaren. F1 bought after earning 18,512$,,,this was my previous month’s paycheck ,and-a little over, 17k$ Last month ..3-5 h/r of work a days ..with extra open doors & weekly. paychecks.. it’s realy the easiest work I have ever Do.. I Joined This 7 months ago and now making over 87$, p/h.Learn. More right Here!!b1189➤➤➤➤➤ http://GlobalSuperEmploymentVacanciesReportsCool/GetPaid/98$hourly…. .❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:❦2:::::!!b1189…….
/
OldCrime / February 24, 2016 3:57 am
Anyone else like the production on the Northlane albums?
/
Spuds / February 24, 2016 9:52 am
I really like the production on Singularity. Sounds punchy as hell on a decent set of speakers. I wasn’t too keen on the way Node sounded. I found it to be pretty flat and lifeless. That said, it does sound a lot better at higher volumes.
/
Steve Frank / February 24, 2016 11:10 am
Empire by Queensryche has been the gold standard for production for me since it came out. That being said, even though it’s not as good a record as its predecessor, All Hope is Gone by Slipknot is CRUSHING! Best snare sound ever.
/
Corpsefunk / February 24, 2016 6:21 pm
Animals-Pink Floyd
Considered Dead-Gorguts
Dreaming Neon Black-Nevermore
Strikes-Blackfoot
Superunknown-Soundgarden
/
McWayne / February 26, 2016 5:51 pm
I actually got so hang with CANDIRIA once backstage years ago at a show in DC and no kidding, they had Sinead O’Connor in their CD travel pack. Was a little blown away by that. Believe they also had Obituary’s World Demise too.
/
Austin Chandler Howe / February 29, 2016 6:50 pm
Bathory – Twilight of The Gods – Fucking gigantic. The reverbs on everything sound great, and the kick drum and bass guitar so the low end of the record is just thudding and plodding, and the guitars just roar.
Trivium – The Crusade – Just a super clear mix where it doesn’t feel super polished because they didn’t drench everything in reverb. Despite being actually very crushed, everything sounds really clear, the guitars have a nice mid-gain bark to them, the drums sound really good. Just a Good Sounding Record.
Korn – Follow The Leader and Issues – Both mixed by Brendan O’ Brien – The mixing and mastering on these records is fucking masterful. Very dynamic, which makes the syncopated rhythms on a track like “It’s On!” or “Make Me Bad” really pop out. These mixes really center on the drums, which is smart since David Silveria has such great flow.
Metallica – St. Anger – Fight me. Super thudding kick drum that just pounds through everything, thick sludgy walls of guitars, that pseudo-industrial snare sound that resonates over everything, so great.
In Flames – Soundtrack to Your Escape. Just a wall of fucking sludge. In Flames from 94-06 always had really crisp musicianship, so they new that they best way to balance that out was by making at least some elements of the recording feel unpolished, and here it’s the way that every instrument stands out by sounding kinda “wrong.” The guitars are too sludgy and grindy for an MDM record, and the drums have that kinda St. Anger-y vibe with the loose snare, and the bass is roaring with distortion.
Yngwie Malmsteen – Eclipse – Perfect example of why metal records shouldn’t always focus on sounding heavy, the echo-y dreamscapes of this record lovingly emphasize the fantastic, subtle vocals.
Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time – Like above, but this time the echo and reverbs give this anthemic sound to the guitars, like these dudes are playing harmonizing leads on top of a mountain or some shit.
Darkthrone – Panzerfaust – The perfect realization of Fenriz’s analogue fetish, managing a crisp clarity in equal measures with the cold grimness of the guitars.
/
Dave Vincent's Perm / March 4, 2016 2:26 am
Darkthrone- Transilvanian Hunger
/
Evan Roche / May 20, 2016 12:42 pm
I don’t know, I think INDIAN’s Guiltless sounds really good. Ephel Duath’s Pain Necessary to Know is really good, too.
Kowloon Walled City always sounds fantastic as well.
/
Darryl / May 23, 2016 8:41 am
Pandora’s Pinata by the Diablo Swing Orchestra. SO many instruments but they all come through clearly and drums just sound great.
/
Brandon Marsh / July 22, 2016 8:16 pm
Slayer – South of Heaven, Reign In Blood
Iron Maiden – Anything done by Martin Birch (1981-1989)
Judas Priest – Stained Class, Screaming For Vengeance, British Steel
Black Sabbath – First 3 Albums, Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules
Dio – Holy Diver, Last In Line
Rainbow – First 3 Albums
Deep Purple – Machine Head, Fireball
/