Example: in 2004 Cradle of Filth released Nymphetamine, soundtrack to a garden party for rich libertines the night before the French Revolution; 2006, and it's Thornography, which if not for the vocal prowess and, erm, other assets of Dirty Harry (aka. Victoria Harrison) it would've been completely unmemorable. Temptation is just a pop song with some guitars to fill in the background; the video isn't even R-rated.
Similarly, Killswitch Engage's As Daylight Dies. Funny as the video is, it says a lot that the most memorable song on it was a Dio cover:
Lamb of God? 2004 and it was Ashes of the Wake, an album that absolutely defined what American metal should sound like. 2006, and it's Sacrament, which was somehow nominated for a Grammy. Can anyone explain to me why? The songwriting that made Ashes so very very good is gone, this is just a bunch of riffs that whizz by too fast to really connect.
On the plus side Black Label Society gave us Shot To Hell, but given all Zakk Wylde albums sound exactly the same it's hard to draw any meaningful conclusions from that.
On the other hand there were a few albums that were unambiguously good, like Scar Symmetry's Pitch Black Progress. The reason? Because they weren't following up their big landmark album, this was their big landmark album.
And my favourite Evergrey album of all time, Monday Morning Apocalypse, dropped in 2006, and I didn't even realise that until I checked the Wiki page. Regardless, they took the muddy gloom of The Inner Circle and cleaned it up a bit, and the result is just a slab of classic rock. Every song on the album could've been the single, they were all just that good.
Honourable mentions also went to Strapping Young Lad for The New Black (Far Beyond Metal alone was worth the price of admission), Slayer for finally realising they were shit without Dave Lombardo on drums, returning to thrash metal and cranking out Christ Illusion before they lost Jeff Hannemann, and Rammstein for the wonderful evening that was Völkerball, although that last one's is a bit iffy because the live DVD was actually recorded at Nimes in – when else? – 2004.
Good times. And also some of my last times. Unemployment and waning interest meant it was about this point that I stopped buying Metal Hammer every month, so I lost track of the scene and my music collection just sort of stopped about here and hasn't moved since. And nothing makes me feel older than the fact that I am completely okay with that. When I tell you this was also the height of the Guitar Hero craze, it'll suddenly hit you how long ago all of this was. But it does give me the perfect way to close this blog:
Freeeek.
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