I won't disagree with the drums sounding a bit ordinary. Gateways... is stupidly triggered. The snare, kick, and toms do not sound natural at all, almost like they removed the acoustic kit altogether apart from the cymbals. I love the tone and the chugginess of the guitars though, and the slower tempos help that, and Tucker sounds great, if not a touch monotone, but that's death metal for the most part.

I agree with Sol though about Abominations..., some of the versions there just work a bit more when they are stripped that down and played with thrashy reckless abandon. As much as Altars of Madness is a genre classic, both the production and Vincent's vocal approach in places just doesn't mesh quite as well as they would from Blessed Are The Sick onwards. Abominations of Desolation is not perfect by any means, but the energy is infectious, and whenever they would go back to the well on all their post-Altars... records to redo songs from here, I never felt like they managed to capture them with that spirit.

And I can concur, Effigy of the Forgotten is freakin' awesome and a death metal essential.

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Effigy and Pierced = essential death metal. After that I'd probably go with Despise The Sun and The Pinnacle of Bedlam, which really surprised me, but overall I've found their 00's albums to be quite average on the whole.

Effigy... and Pierced... are both easily classics, the latter being one of my all-time faves. Mullen’s vocals there have definitely become a bit less indecipherable from the debut.

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Probably amongst my Top 3 Meshuggah albums (along with Destroy, Erase, Improve and I), the first four tracks here absolutely slay. For mine this feels like the start to signature sound (that midpaced, 16-beat cycling patterns, which was less prominent on prior albums) that plenty of bands went on to pilfer years later.

Yeh. The mechanical stop-start downtuned rhythms and fusion influenced solos began on D.E.I, but Chaosphere is when they really lunged headfirst into actually exploring the intricacies of more relentleess rhythmic cycles. It sounded more fluid than DEI too, which was choppier, even if it was deliberate.

I was obsessed with Chaosphere in the late 90's. Even bought a longsleeve which I wore proudly!

I like Nothing a lot too, which was more about space and groove, but it didn't have the same impact on me as Chaosphere. Meshuggah got my interest back again with the last album after almost losing me for a while (after 04), although Catch 33 has some absolutely brilliant stuff on it.

I have a soft spot for Nothing, and especially ‘Straws Pulled At Random’. It’s one of the few times they’ve actually introduced something approaching a conventional melody, and it’s glorious! People rave about obZen, but I never really got along with it. They had explored that sound they developed on Chaosphere to the nth degree by that point, and playing around with arrangements and song structures on I and Catch Thirty-Three are the only things that kept it fresh for me. I’ve really no idea what they’ve been up to the last decade, and the emergence of djent hasn’t really inspired me with much interest.

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Just some good old, straight ahead, Scandinavian death/thrash.

Running Wild - "Branded & Exiled" (1985)

I've still to hear that all the way through as it tends to bore me after the first few songs...

^^I actually think it is one of their best albums.

N.P Woods At Echo Lake

I'm feeling a bit bummed out today, trying to remedy that with an album I adore.

Mayhem - "De mysteriis dom Sathanas" (1994)

My favourite of hers. I think it got the Mercury music prize too?

That is correct. I think Let England Shake also received that award.

Candlemass - "Epicus Doomicus Metallicus" (1986)

A friend asked me which Tool album she should check out. I suggested Lateralus, but I was a bit torn if I should suggest it or Ænemia. So I had to have a listen, even though I’ve probably heard this album enough. I think it maintains an atmosphere better without all the interjections of (what I assume is) sardonic humour that it’s predecessor has, though there are probably songs on their sophomore LP that I consider better than anything on Lateralus. Still not sure.