. . .
The sorcery involved in conjuring a list of great albums with terrible drumming is sort of like coming up with a list of great vocalists who can’t really sing. It’s generally accepted that in rock music, and by extension heavy metal, the drums provide the foundation on which the megalith of majesty is built. If the foundation is questionable, then what sort of mad scientist construct must exist above it that holds the whole together?
Here we have ten metal greats with terrible drumming. Well, at the very least, questionable or debatable drumming. Most of the entries are from the formative ’80s, prior to horrible playing and production becoming the standard in the ’90s for so much metal, as well as the almost exclusive use of triggers and Pro Tools in the ’00s to make all drum performances clinically devoid of any human component.
. . .
TOP 10 GREAT METAL ALBUMS
WITH TERRIBLE DRUMMING
. . .
10. Angel Witch – Angel Witch
Angel Witch’s debut by no means features terrible drumming. Let me explain its inclusion in this list. When I first heard this classic in 1983, I found myself somewhat disappointed. It was not superior to Maiden’s Killers as I’d been lead to believe. Over the years, I’ve come to truly love this album and hold it in regard just as highly as my fellow earth dogs, but at that time, it just sounded hopelessly dated when compared to much of what was coming out of England. To these ears, part of what made it sound like an old Uriah Heep record was the fact that the rhythm section was not up the task of executing band leader Kevin Heybourne’s compositions. Heybourne was an excellent guitarist, vocalist and songwriter, penning NWOBHM classics that were compositionally as state-of-the-art as those of Maiden, presaging the direction Mercyful Fate would take in the next few years. Drummer Kevin Riddles and bassist Dave Hogg are serviceable enough, contributing a very ’70s pub-rock vibe to the record, but the material here demands more. For years, I’ve always wondered what Angel Witch would have sounded like had a drummer the caliber of Clive Burr or Raven’s Rob Hunter been behind the kit, drummers who were essential in the technical development of metal from the hard rock of the ’70s to the high-tech metal of the ’80s.
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Angel Witch – “White Witch”
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9. Judas Priest – Sad Wings of Destiny
Another sacred cow, even more so than the Angel Witch debut. Anyone who delves into the Priest discography beyond the requisite Screaming for Vengeance” British Steel, or possibly Painkiller will exclaim that this is their favorite Priest record. Although I can appreciate its historical significance, realizing an ornate, progressive, complexly-textured riff cornucopia almost without peer, I’ve always found the record a bit overrated. I feel that the songs on this record are better displayed on Priest’s live Unleashed in the East. Arguments abound regarding whether or not the tempos on this platter or on the live document are superior. To my ears, to this day, “Tyrant,” “Victim of Changes”, and “Genocide” drag, drearily plodding along, rather than “pounding the world like a battering ram”. Alan Moore barely gets the job done. He was permanently replaced by Les Binks in 1978, the best drummer Priest was to ever have, a man whose power and dexterity would be missed once they entered the ’80s.
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Judas Priest – “Genocide”
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8. Exodus – Pleasures of the Flesh
What happened here? It baffles the senses. To my mind, if Dave Lombardo was thrash metal’s John Bonham, then Exodus’s Tom Hunting was thrash metal’s Keith Moon. Early video from the Combat Tour: The Ultimate Revenge shows an amazing monster of a drummer, flailing around on his kit, smashing cymbals to every subtle accent with amphetamine-fueled intensity. His performance on Exodus’s debut Bonded by Blood, is excellent, full of intensity and youthful chaos.
When the time finally came to record the follow-up in 1987, something went wrong. The liner notes state that Metallica live sound engineer, Mark Whitaker, was responsible for producing the drums. This would indicate some sort of separate process from the recording of the rest of the record. The drums sound artificial, are mixed at times too loudly, have what sound like awkward punch-ins, and in general seem to be pasted over the top of an already-finished recording by someone who couldn’t really hear or keep track of the songs they were playing. The end of “Faster Than You’ll Ever Live to Be” sounds like Tom’s having a hard time keeping his snare hits even, every other hit sounding a little louder. I saw Exodus open for Celtic Frost in 1987, and I know for certain that Tom was able to execute every one of these drum parts flawlessly. What happened while documenting these songs, however, remains a mystery.
. . .
Exodus – “Faster Than You’ll Ever Live to Be”
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7. Dark Angel – Darkness Descends
The second Dark Angel record was the first to feature future drum god Gene Hoglan, a wee lad of just 19 at the time of the album’s release. Hoglan has gone on to become one of the greatest extreme metal drummers of all-time, his throne comfortably nestled between that of Dave Lombardo and Pete Sandoval. But in 1986, he was an over-achieving maniac seemingly intent on the singular goal of surpassing Mr. Lombaro’s skill in every possible way. Many of the roots of Hoglan’s signature style are already evident, but he’s mightily sloppy on this record, getting by more on intensity than on technique. During the intro to “Darkness Descends”, he plainly completely loses the beat after each fill, most notably around the 1:10 mark. This stumble recurs over and over, causing me to grimace each time he returns to this section.
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Dark Angel – “Darkness Descends”
. . .
6. Razor – Executioner’s Song
If 1984 was the year the heavy metal floodgates were forced open, then 1985 was the year the dam completely exploded. On top of all the no-name bands on Planet Metal, wanting to be the next Priest or Maiden, every country was unchaining its answers to Venom, Metallica and Slayer. One of the first Canadian combatants in the power/thrash onslaught was Razor, following quickly in the footsteps of countrymen Anvil and Exciter. Their first full-length contains a couple of brilliant classics, lead track “Take This Torch” being the best example. Mysteriously named drummer M-Bro could barely keep time, even on the slow tracks. He fails to connect between fills and verse/choruses and is plagued by the “every other hit is harder than every other one” syndrome. The bass drums are buried so low as to be barely a rumble underneath the rest of the poorly-mixed tracks. The songs are however salvaged by my favorite component of the record, Stace “Sheepdog” McLaren’s vocal witchcraft. As he climbs ever higher, each line of the chorus more desperate than the one before, he discharges “Take This Torch” into another realm of hyper-kinetic fury.
. . .
Razor – “Take This Torch”
. . .
5. Carcass – Reek of Putrefaction
And so begins one of the most extreme transformations of a band in the history of Rock music. Carcass’ 1988 set new standards for auditory dismemberment, channeling the sound of Napalm Death through a vomited, gore-encrusted wormhole backwards. This is the aural nightmare of the dissecting table pushed beyond the extremes previously explored by the tinny sounds of blackthrash with bowl-rupturing, gurgling low end. Ken Owen flails about so nightmarishly you can’t even really distinguish if he’s even playing drums or has merely taken the contents of mortician’s tools of the trade and thrown them out of the window of morgue into the biohazard-labeled dumpster.
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Carcass – “Pyosisfied (Rotten to the Gore)”
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4. Sodom – Obsessed by Cruelty
This is the one album with which I was completely unfamiliar before I started writing this column. Upon asking friends what they thought were some of the greatest, most infamous metal albums with terrible drumming, invariably this record came up as often as Seven Churches and The Return. The entire bands sound like a horde of PCP-fueled orcs who have never seen musical instruments and are now driven by spellcraft to forge the most violent cacophony known to humankind. Quite possibly the final word in “so horrible, so messy and out of time, yet adds to the overall absurdist demonic atmosphere”. I love how Witchhunterslows down at the end of each verse section before piledriving into the next part, as exemplified by “Brandish the Sceptre” and “Witchhammer”.
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Sodom – “Brandish the Sceptre”
. . .
3. Possessed – Seven Churches
One of the most infamous albums in metal history, theoretically the birth of death metal, the first official recording featuring future Primus guitarist Larry LaLonde, and one of the most glorious vocal performances of the 1980s, Seven Churches set the template for Death and Morbid Angel and uncountable legions of subsequent imitators. Drummer Mike Sus is, however, responsible for one of the worst performances in metal history. Completely unable to keep time, substituting such a skill with a bizarre mish-mash of fills, starts, and stops, he nevertheless is unable to keep such landmark satanic monuments as “The Exorcist” and “Death Metal” from rightfully being considered classics. Jeff Becerra’s blowtorch shrieks and LaLonde and Mike Torrao’s riffs which connect Show No Mercy to Altars of Madness propel the album into the annals of the ghastly abyss. Mike Sus’ band photo, bloody drumstick in clenched teeth, invisible oranges displayed for all to see, is his most notable contribution to Seven Churches. Kill dem pigs!!!
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Possessed – “The Exorcist”
. . .
2. Bathory – The Return
As previously mentioned, 1985 was the year the dam burst, and every possible imitator and future genre-definer rushed to get songs from the bedroom and basement into the stream of public consumption. Bathory’s second album, one of the pillars of the second-wave black metal canon, was 100% pure Venom worship, with everything from lyrics to riffs to titles swiped in part to make up the whole of the contents. The Return features some of the absolute worst drumming ever released by a legitimate record label. The fast middle section of “The Rite of Darkness” even surpasses Mike Sus’ horrid timekeeping on Possessed’s debut. Legend has it that Bathory mastermind Quorthon was so drunk during the recording of this record that he couldn’t remember even doing it. It definitely sounds like a blackout drunk performed the pedestrian plodding and manic flailing to be found all over this record. Another “classic” due to the fact that it does take the atmosphere of Venom and push that filthy, creepy, demonic feeling into new realms of ghastly unease.
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Bathory – “The Rite of Darkness/Reap of Evil”
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1. Venom – Welcome to Hell
This is the alpha and the omega; the yang to Iron Maiden’s yin; the end of the NWOBHM; the beginning of thrash, death, and black metal; the album that changed the face of heavy metal, possibly in more ways than any single LP other than Black Sabbath’s Paranoid. Three wackos from Newcastle thought the sound of Motörhead, the visuals of KISS, and subject matter only hinted at by Black Sabbath would make the perfect ingredients for the perfect rock ‘n’ roll holocaust. Abaddon’s barbaric “drums and nuclear warheads” seem to be less a case of him not being able to play and more that, in true punk rock fashion, he just didn’t care. He was there to enjoy himself in the revelry, not to anxiously brood over the specifics of performance. Much of what he disgorges here seems musically quite appropriate; it’s just the execution is a bit sloppy. Welcome to Hell is the sound of heavy metal throwing out the rule book and adopting the attitude of punk – but if there was anything they didn’t like about punk, they threw that out, too.
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Venom – “Sons of Satan”
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Chris Dalton plays drums for New Light Choir.
. . .
What no mention of Tombs latest effort ‘Path Of Totality?’ Two great albums and then it all goes pear shaped. I suppose there is a parallel thread that would relate to horrible drum sounds rather than bad drumming – Metallica’s ‘And justice for all’ was like nails down a blackboard for me – that super clean clicky bass drum sound
You’re not the first person I’ve seen/heard to say/write this. I’m not a drummer, but I can’t figure out why folks hate the drumming on “Path of Totality”. Can you explain further? I’m not dismissing your claim, just want to know what I am missing.
I’m not a drummer either, but I HATE that sonic boom thing that happens with the drums whenever he hits a symbol and the base drum at the same time. It’s still a fantastic record, but i definitely had to get used to that.
I’m glad someone else mentioned the “clickety click” bass drum on that album. It always bugged me as well. Also, the “PAH” sound, (for lack of a better way to describe it),of Lars’ snare drum on St. Anger has always grated on my nerves too.
Thank you! PAH is the right syllable. First thing I noticed.
Conclusion: I like sloppy drumming. It’s hard for me to avoid that your top four are some of my favorite metal recordings. I find that a loose, “terrible” drumming style can telegraph a sense of passion to me. I experience extreme technicality as sterile. Sometimes when a band lacks perfection, I feel a soul in the music, like the musicians had to get their songs out, limitation be damned. I realize that this comes from my own set of biases and assumptions, but all taste is subjective, I guess. However, I do think that this kind of sloppiness can work better in metal than other genres because lots of metal is supposed to challenge standards and undermine what is proper, in a way similar to how lack of musicianship can be a badge of honor for punk.
Early metallica for sure.
I personally hate the drumming on most early thrash and early hardcore. The ” I’ve got to get as many notes in as I can!” style has always really irritated me. My favorite drumming is when really talented death metal drummers know how to show some restraint.
This year’s Nader Sadek album should be right up your alley, then. I had no idea Flo from Cryptopsy could be so relatively calm and compact.
Dude, this is a cool premise for a post but the fact that it is entirely dinosaur metal bands isnt fair. This is like writing a post about how terrible professional sports teams from 30 years ago are compared to the ones we have today. All of these bands are basically strictly worse than others of similar genres, obviously they have terrible drumming. It wouldve been better to have talked about someone in the last 10 (or god forbid, 20) years. Also, your writing style is way too much “Internet metal blogger”. But the idea for the post is cool and pretty unique as far as top 10 lists go! I think the next should be top 10 lyricists who are likely legally retarded.
I’m working on a top ten of legally retarded commenters…
Actually, it might be sort of interesting to compare the Lombardi-era Packers with today’s championship team.
The whole premise of the movie “Rocky Balboa” was that Rocky was lured out of a retirement when commentators suggested that a vintage Rocky could beat champ Mason “The Line” Dixon.
Someone actually sort of did this comparison:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/don_banks/01/21/vince-lombardi/index.html
The most immediate difference that comes to mind is between Lombardi’s run emphasis and today’s pass-happy Packers.
“your writing style is way too much “Internet metal blogger”
^ this seems like an odd criticism to level at someone who is in fact writing for an Internet metal blog.
Interesting post, but I too would’ve liked to have seen some more recent albums mentioned as well. Doesn’t modern metal already get saddled with enough ’80s nostalgia? Also, I feel like a couple of the entries here talk a lot about the album as a whole and then mention the drums almost as an afterthought instead of making the “terrible drumming” the focus.
it’s GREAT ALBUMS with terrible drumming, and I think that Chris has done a great job of demonstrating the state of tension between the two, given the space.
I was thinking about the parameters for judging current metal drumming in the car last night. I was listening to the latest Blackguard album. The drums are super-perfect, distasteful to me on one hand, but an orgy of interesting rhythmic nuance on the other. Maybe the aesthetic there is more akin to programming in dance music?
Can anybody confirm whether the Alan Moore on early Priest albums is the same guy who did Watchmen, V for Vendetta, Swamp Thing, etc?
know what else really sucks? Samhain drums. It seems like they were trying to make booming, tribal-ish drumming a cornerstone of Samhain’s style, but it just sounds poor.
This is a very insightful article that made me laugh out loud a few times. I love this guy’s style, let’s have more of it! TAKE THIS TORCH!
I’m a ridiculously huge Alan Moore fan and have read a number of biographies (both in print and online) and a stint in Judas Priest has never been mentioned. Alan Moore has made a foray or two into music though. The most notable to metal fans being a performance piece with music composed by (among others) Justing Broderick and Mike Patton: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unearthing
Also, drummer Alan Moore has a separate Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Moore_(drummer)
Danzig did a lot of the drums on Samhain records. They also used a drum machine sometimes.
I love some of the drum machine songs on Final Descent!
Eat a dick, son. Sometimes this nit-picking shit just goes way too far over board. These are some of the finest metal albums ever recorded and you should be flogged publicly for even questioning their merits plus the omission of Metallica shows the ineptitude of the list.
^This.
That would more accurately be, “Eat a dick, old man.”
Two drumsticks to you good sir MT! Who the fuck cares?? I love all these albums, “flaws” included, and I personally like sloppiness if the passion is there–all you non drummers make me wanna stab you repeatedly with Texas Oak Pro Marks. Not everyone’s Neil Peart or fucking or a Lombardo. It’s shit like this that makes the “Oh, just another negative internet troll argument” redundant. If you haven’t noticed, every single one of these bands inspired other bands and have rabid fanbases. Fail.
It seems like someone didn’t actually get the point of this blog entry. Albums haven’t been bashed here; only terrible drumming on them has. Even I got the point, and English is certainly not my mother tongue.
Great post!! You make some valid points. I never really thought about Angel Witch that way before. I can’t really argue with the fact that as much as I love that album, the rhythm section isn’t quite as adventurous as some of their contemporaries – or even forefathers. Would it have sounded better with Cozy Powell playing??
And even great drummers, like Mr. Hoglan, have to start somewhere!
For me, passion often trumps technicality, and perhaps that’s why, for all their sloppiness, Welcome to Hell and The Return have withstood the test of time.
It’s funny how once you fall in love with something/one, you often come to love the imperfections. Or is it the other way around???
>For me, passion often trumps technicality
Give me a crazy, out-of-time, enthusiastic drum recording any day over precision triggered bullshit.
The art critic Dave Hickey wrote a great article about what he called “getting it exactly wrong” and I think that applies to a lot of the albums here; Hickey used the example of Andy Warhol’s films, particularly “Hair Cut 1,” the slippery feel of many Rolling Stones songs created by Richards & Co. getting a nanosecond ahead of Charlie Watts out of pure human neural excitement to be playing music, etc. Those frailties are what makes the artworks pack so much emotional punch.
I don’t buy the idea that technical prowess always equals sterility and sloppiness always equals passion. There are masterful technicians out there who can convey great emotion in their playing — to use a nonmetal example, the pianist Simone Dinnerstein comes to mind — just as there are bands out there that make a virtue of their lack of schooling but pack no power.
I was just listening to BLOOD’s Impulse To Destroy on the way to work this morning. Discovered that long lost gem through Aesop Dekker’s blog. Holy shit, the drumming is so sloppy, the drummer keeps falling behind the beat, the vocals are weird, song titles such as “A Big Cake” and “Skate Is Great”, fucking awesome! I had to buy a bootleg BLOOD shirt at MDF because of how awesomely ungoogle-able this band is. By the way, BLOOD was a huge influence on this band called Blasphemy and their bestial black metal sound. I’d rather have an album that actually has real drumming than a super clean technical album where the drums sound like a typewriter.
…or sound like a sprinkler on your parents’ front lawn. (My new favorite description of clickity-click speed drumming, from Cosmo’s interview with Gravehill.)
Haha! Totally agree with you about ‘Reek Of Putrefaction’ but I can’t talk shit on ‘Seven Churches’. I love that record.
First thing I thought when I saw this article was “Leprosy!”
<>
What does this mean I wonder ? I’ve had conversations similar, no almost identical, to this with folks in record stores and at shows once I know they won’t be bored by my geeky obsessiveness.
Oops, I was asking about ‘you write like an internet music blogger’.
you forgot Pleasure to Kill
I didn’t want the whole list to be German thrash. I very seriously considered Destruction’s – “Infernal Overkill.” “Pleasure to Kill” seemed like the least offensive of the first few German full-length offerings.
I wouldn’t criticise any of the drumming on these albums.
Most of them are ground breakers, and as such aren’t perfect. In the context of their time they are excellent.
I’d like to see any drummer from 1986 take on Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends. Apart from Lombardo himself you would struggle to name any that could play that album that well at that time. Same goes for Reek Of Putrefaction. Its actually my least favourite Carcass album but you can’t get away from the fact it was completely new territory, and with each following album (up to Heartwork) you could hear the band sharpening their skills.
Sorry, but I think the criticism is unfounded.
I would also add Decide’s self-titled to this list. I love that record, but the drumming is the pits.
“Sad Wings of Destiny” is the first heavy metal record ever to date. You think they should sound as if they’d be “pounding the world like a battering ram”? How about the way most proto-metal bands sounded back in the day? I understand the argument concerning “Unleashed in the East” but it is clearly wrong given the year SoD was released. And.. Possessed? Venom? The raw sloppiness of such bands is what influenced black and death metal. Terrible selections, I can understand why a musician would believe most of these cases fall into the category of terrible drumming and this is why I tend to believe most musicians are not good critics. Because some of these cases are really not meant to be based on musicianship in the first place.
I know it’s from the 90s and doesn’t qualify for the list but man, Bolt Thrower’s Realm Of Chaos has some shit-sloppy drumming on it.
I don’r really get carcass’ inclusion on this, ken’s keeping perfect timing through out the song, the production is just awful.
Drummer rant:
Pretty much anyone doing the ‘black metal shuffle’ these days sux.
People who record each and every drum on the kit, and then replace the real sound with a triggered one, sucketh.
Rock a Rolla had much sloppier drums than Sad Wings. However, at least it’s real drums on the recording, made by someone who is trying to sound good, even if they aren’t. Things can be totally different these days.
I’m sort of shocked there’s no first-wave Norwegian black metal on this list. When I think “great albums with terrible drumming,” early Immortal and Mayhem come immediately to mind.
A much newer example would be Xasthur’s “Defective Epitaph,” an album whose drumming was so bad that I couldn’t even listen to it all the way through. I guess it wouldn’t qualify for this list, but holy hell I have no idea what made Malefic think he was ready to play acoustic drums?
>I guess it wouldn’t qualify for this list, but holy hell I have no idea what made Malefic think he was ready to play acoustic drums?
He doesn’t care.
I agree that Sad Wings of Destiny was weak for drumming. But Darkness Descends? Congratulations, you are a fucking idiot.
The entire Pelican catalog is held back by stunted drumming, though I’d file them all under ‘decent’ rather than ‘great’. Except for the first EP, which kind of rules.
yep, pelican for sure
The only criticism I have for Gene Hoglan’s drumming on Darkness Descends is that it is too high in the mix.
Today is the Day has had some great drummers, but the guy who plays on _Sadness Will Prevail_ is not one of them, a problem exacerbated by that album’s odd, tinny production.
Slightly off-topic, but how much cooler would TITD kindred spirits Unsane be had their original drummer Charlie Ondras not died of a heroin overdose? I like Vinnie Signorelli, but I always listen to the more recent Unsane albums wondering what they would sound like with Ondras’s busier, tribal drumming (and with looser, noisier guitar from Chris Spencer, who tightened things up a lot circa _Total Destruction_). Ondras put the jungle in “Jungle Music.”
I gotta agree with you on Sad Wings of Destiny. I heard it AFTER Unleashed in the East, so those songs have always sounded a little “less than” to me.
In terms of modern heavy music (I’ve decided to eliminate “metal” from my vocabulary, it’s stupid and I don’t care anymore) Pelican’s Australasia is still great despite Larry Herwig being the World’s worst drummer…watched them at Power Of The Riff a few weeks back and he was painful to listen to!
Former Judas Priest drummer Les Binks was sent to prison for sexually abusing a boy with learning disabilities, the lad was having drum lessons with him.
NOT les binks!! http://www.roadrunnerrecords.com/blabbermouth.net/news.aspx?mode=Article&newsitemID=82319
Thank you, Cosmo, for giving me this opportunity to rile the metal masses. This has truly been an awesome experience. You gotta remember, this is just one man’s opinion. This is the conversation you’d get from me in the bar or at a show or at the record store. Thanks to everyone who read and commented!
It’s amusing how riled up people get about music.
Sadly, a lot of people don’t have the honesty and forthrightness to speak on the Internet like they would face-to-face.
I think it is astonishing how many people completely missed your point about the albums being the Top 10 Great albums with terrible drumming; far more nerd rage than usual in the comments on IO.
I wouldn’t say this article is getting that much flak, really. There’s been much worse. Regardless, I don’t think you can totally separate the message from the medium. A silly discussion between friends in a bar and the same silly discussion on a public medium in a supposedly serious setting with a large audience are completely different things.
If I make a purposedly lame pun or incendiary comment with friends in a casual setting, we’ll laugh about it and forget it all in 10 minutes. But if I make a 3 hours long movie with a huge budget and tons of advertising just to say the same thing, I’m probably not going to get the same reaction.
Articles on a renowned website have a sort of legitimacy or authority that is bound to get people more willing to react positively or negatively. When you are on the home page of a website like this saying something that basically looks like ‘HEY THESE DRUMMERS SUCK’ (and since you’re a drummer yourself, it kind of seems implied that you’re saying you’d do better) you’re bound to come off as pretentious or dickish or whatever else is the reason people react to this post.
And, I have to say, I don’t hear anything wrong with the drumming on the vast majority of these songs.
“To rile the metal masses”. Well if you’d tell the exact same things in person I’d say I have to put an end to our discussion because you obviously have not comprehended what extreme old school music was supposed to be about back in the day. I disagree with Cosmo’s writings once in a while as well, but this has just to do with a different kind of view, thus an opinion. You, on the other hand, are wrong. Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but you obviously put aside a whole lots of facts you probably don’t really understand. My opinion.
So much modern drumming is hyper fast, ultra triggered nonsense that I’ve actually become nostalgic towards a lot of the older, “sloppier” stuff.
I can’t think of a single article on this site that has drawn as much flak as this one. I enjoyed reading it, though. My only quibble is that while Les Binks was a very good drummer, especially back in the day, I think that Scott Travis is much better.
Also, I feel like Hellhammer should’ve made this list for the apocalyptic raids EP. Tom Warrior has said in at least one interview that the band didn’t know how to play their instruments and were basically learning as they went.
Slayer’s God Hates Us All is not a great album, nor is it ruined by the drumming. Paul Bostaph is a pretty good drummer, but his performance on that album is just…wooden. He’s in time, maybe through the magic of Pro-Tools, but there’s just no groove or energy.
I eliminated “Apocalyptic Raids” from the running due to the fact that it wasn’t a full-length recording.
all this talk about old thrash with bad drumming, and no mention of Hirax?
Pelican. That is all.
it’s official…pelican
Damn right, Pelican. And the first ones from Isis.
I could never listen to that Carcass album long enough to even pay attention to the drum performance.
I think as far as modern albums go, Urfaust’s “Geist Ist Teufel” has a fair bit of screwups. I think the band even admitted that most of those recordings were done during a drunk rehearsal.
Nice one. Funny how much flak you got for posting this. Hey, you wrote “GREAT metal albums (with terrible drumming)”, so no reason to go bonkers (even though labelling “Obsessed By Cruelty” a “Great Metal Album” might be a bit…well, odd).
I’d throw Paradise Lost’s Matt Archer in the ring – for he managed to drag down otherwise-flawless albums like “Gothic” or “Icon” with his lukewarm and just plain-boring drumming.
I seriously considered Matt Archer for this list but couldn’t decide which album would really best fit the “Great Album” category to go with his performance.
Obsessed by Cruelty is one of my favorite metal albums, so including it here made perfect sense. It also hugely inspired the second wave of black metal, so it seems appropriate.
Correction: Bolt Thrower’s Realm Of Chaos IS dinosaur metal (1989) so it totally qualifies for this list. I cringe as the drums try to keep up at the begining of World Eater. Nevertheless, the song is probably one of my all-time favorite crushers.
Pelican
Sepultura’s Morbid Visions is another possibility for this list I think. It was kind of sloppy in general, but the drumming was really sloppy.
That being said, I love that album.
I can’t believe noone’s mentioned Opeth’s first two albums, Orchid and Morningrise! They have drumming that is literally all over the place time wise, rendering the records completeley un-frikkin-listenable!
Fuck Opeth, that shit isn’t metal, idiot.
The drums amkes rock music what it is, way before the guitars or the vocals. It’s impressive to recount all those classic albums who suffered from sloppy drumming. I guess the nostalgia and inexpertise we had back then as listeners made-up for the poor performances these guys offered. Back then it just sounded fast and it was enough. No one can get away with sloppy drums these days.
Finally some recognition for Venom on this site. Greatest album of the 80s, with pretty bad drumming, hell pretty bad everything when looking at individual components. But put together, this glorious piece of filth crushes all. They didn’t care, they were having a blast, and so are we 30 years on.
I know Sodom’s OBC definitely qualifies in this article…but that’s such a sick/dark/morbid LP I can’t imagine anyone REALLY caring about the drumming unless they were unreservedly pedantic.
RE: this question asked, though, my favorite terrible drumming LP will probably always be Graveland’s “Following the Voice of Blood.” I think it was recorded with a Toys R Us drum set with Capricornus confusing a cymbal with the snare…that and the surf guitar sound alone make it a classic.
This was an extremely entertaining read! Has anyone ever noticed that in some cases [ that Razor track actually comes to mind ] the GUITARISTS might be ignoring the tempo / drums; thus throwing the drummers under the bus? Granted; there is some shaky timekeeping going on; however; maybe – just maybe – the Instrumentalists could use a bit more metronome work. Unfortunately; I’ve seen / heard / played with a few guitarists who feel the need to hummingbird their way through riffs at the expense of feel and groove.
Great article!!!
nice blog. now im late for work asshole.
Critique: n. 1. A critical review or commentary, especially one dealing with works of art or literature.
Irony: n. 1. Chris Dalton critiquing other drummers, when his own playing is even shittier than all the drummers on the list combined.
Shit: n. 1. New Light Choir’s sound.
You obviously have not heard Hellhammer’s only realease.
The became Celtic Frost after replacing their lousy drummer.
Hellhammer is definately up there with Bathory and Sodom. Hands down.
Cheers!
Fully agree on Sad Wings Of Destiny, that is one overrated record. And Priest is one of my favorite bands by the way. Yes, it has some stuff going on that would turn out to be influential, but on the whole it’s nowhere near Priest’s best. Not even in their top 5. Besides that, Priest was never a “drummer’s band” anyway.
As it is a quote from an above poster, let me just say that I find the idea that ‘bad drumming’ is ‘good for music’ to be such a ridiculous concept. Bad musicians create bad music and generally I don’t enjoy bad music. I don’t care what sort of nebulous qualities (ohh, it’s got more feeling) one tries to muster, the end result is garbage. For my submission to the cause, I submit Sodom’s very first album. Not only was the drummer bad, the entire band sucked and could barely play. Like most thrash bands of the time however, they got better and went from writing crap (like their early record) to becoming BETTER PLAYERS and writing such full, heavy, intense albums such as Persecution Mania and Agent Orange.
Metallica = Bland and boring “metal”
I think Tom and Gene should have been left off the list. Despite bad production values or occasional sloppiness, they are still great drumming albums. Look at Macabre – their first EP and first album have really sloppy drumming and bad drum production, but it’s still some of the best drumming of the entire 1980’s. Too bad the album “Dahmer” redefined all of metal drumming, at least for me.
Didn’t really sell me on why Venom’s drums sounded so terrible. From what I gather they were barbaric “drums and nuclear warheads” disgorgements that are musically appropriate, and that it’s just the execution is a bit sloppy.
Slightly sloppy barbaric punk rock nuclear warheads? Sounds good to me! But not “No. 1 worst drums on a classic metal album ever.”
Still, Cool article. I read the whole thing, wrote a silly comment, and now am listening to Venom on my ear cans. win!
WK
There is a huge difference between shit drumming and shit drum sound…Cruelty and the Beast by Cradle of Filth is a prime example….drumming is insane, but the mix is shithouse