Justify Your Shitty Taste

Mustering up a defense of Slither is a strange, somewhat lonely business — never mind the fool’s errand of hunting for freethinkers in the Earth Crisis fanbase to back me up on this one…

In which we reconsider Pantera’s final offering, 2000’s Reinventing the Steel.

Slayer’s eighth LP of original material, God Hates Us All, stands as one of their most divisive. To some, it appeared to be another record in which the thrash icons failed to diversify their songwriting.

Yeah, it wasn’t Arise!, but punk legends Amebix weren’t exactly in their 20s when they released their misunderstood comeback/swan song Sonic Mass.

In defense of Testament‘s most melodic album.

We revisit Immortal’s transition stage between two regions of Blashyrkh.

Wake up, people! Tiamat‘s 1997 departure A Deeper Kind of Slumber actually rules. Here’s why.

Put down the Yellow Goat pressing of the first Bathory album you paid $500 for on eBay, and spend some time with the overlooked gem that is Requiem.

The first Justify Your Shitty Taste I wrote for Decibel covered, in detail, Dissection’s Reinkaos album, Jon Nödtveidt’s divisive, not-at-all-like Storm of the Light’s Bane comeback album.

Ulver traded their wolves’ skin for electronica and trip-hop 16 years ago. Are you over it yet?

Satyricon may have traded in medieval times for urban discipline in 1999, but that doesn’t mean that you should overlook the power of the controversial Rebel Extravaganza.

Was Morbid Angel’s minor change in direction in 1995 just “too extreme” for old-school death metallers to accept? Our Neill Jameson defends Domination’s place in metal history.

Thinking-man alt-metal tarnished by a horrid band name: Mind Funk’s 1991 debut is way better than any of us want to admit.

Remember in 1998 when Entombed went noise rock? About that…

Under a Better-Than-Average Moon.

Us and Them may be an outlier, but that’s to be expected considering who’s at the helm. Throughout Godflesh’s history, they never sat still and even from the very start, were atypical.

If we could all stop worrying about World Downfall for a goddamn minute, we’d realize Terrorizer‘s output after it was really pretty awesome.

As a monument to the collapse of one isolated psyche, as an exploration of an emotional sphere often relegated to the unconscious, Neurosis & Jarboe is far more compelling than any other attempt we’ve heard yet.

Even Napalm Death had growing pains. Our latest Justify Your Shitty Taste defends that era of the legendary grindcore band.

Metallica’s Load reconsidered 20 years later.

Deftones is the sound of a rock band making a rock record. Deftones were never an art rock band. Parts of White Pony might have misled you, but the band’s 2003 album should remind you to pump your fucking fist.

While derided by Al Jourgensen and some fans With Sympathy contains some of Al’s most iconic songs and tips the hat to what followed in his still evolving career.

Upon hearing that Deicide’s sixth album In Torment In Hell was a potential selection for Justify Your Shitty Taste, our Editor-in-Chief responded with a simple: “Oooh, that’s bad.” No other words were uttered. But is it really?

I am gobsmacked that I’m being asked to defend Obituary’s World Demise, a record that, in my mind, is nothing less than a classic extreme metal record which I assumed was pretty much universally respected.

Okay, before we step into the ring, fair warning: This is going to be some bare-knuckles shit. Go ahead and tighten up your gut.

I’m going to give my editors the benefit of the doubt here and assume they meant Verify Your Awesome Taste. I mean, come on, everybody knows there’s no such thing as a shitty King Diamond record. Some might be less memorable than others based on your personal criteria and/or schlock tolerance, but I’ll be goddamned if King has ever had a “St. Anger” moment in the span of his career. 

November 16th, 1981. Utter that date to any KISS fan and you’re going to get punched or hugged. Who knows, you may get nothing because maybe said KISS fan never did his homework. Either way, it doesn’t really matter because this is Justify Your Shitty Taste, and I’m talking Music from “The Elder” by KISS.

The tribal beats, the crunching metal guitar and the half rap/half sung vocals of Chuck Mosley coalesced into something altogether original. You can unfortunately perhaps heap some blame for nu metal on these dudes, but what they created at the time was in fact revolutionary. It was like Killing Joke, Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers swapped members for a jam session and came up with a new genre.

The nature/nurture quotient breaks down, the promise of the sprawling, churning overture that launches the anthemic title track is relentlessly fulfilled. Reroute to Remain is not only In Flames most multidimensional, diverse offering, it is also the record where every previously established aspect of its game — stellar, yeomanly guitar work; a rhythm section jackhammering ever deeper into the foundation — congeals, raising the whole to hitherto unscaled heights.

Almost every band has that album: you know, the critically and/or commercially reviled dud in an otherwise passable-to-radical back catalog. Well, once in a while, on Wednesday morning, a Decibel staffer or special guest will take to the Deciblog to bitch and moan at length as to why everybody’s full of shit and said dud…