He is a bit smarmy, but honestly anyone with strong opinions comes off that way. I agree 100% that he does put a lot of interesting bands/artists in the spotlight that would've otherwise been completely off people's radars.
I have never actually watched a whole video of Fantano but I always though he did that on purpose. Like it was some kind of inside joke between him and his audience. For example, look at 3:19 or 16:59. There is no way he not purposely trying to make me want to punch him in his face.
Sunn isn't a band you listen to analytically. Like of course it's gonna get boring sitting there, completely sober and trying to be attentive to every nitty gritty detail of their music. Their appeal is pretty much lost on anyone who expects the same payoff as any music that is more active or conventional. It's a stretch to call them metal in the first place anyways. I approach Sunn the same way I do with any ambient or drone or noise or avant-garde piece. Put it in the background... let it simmer and do its magic either while you're either busy doing something else, or while you're in the right mood. Or intoxicated lol
That’s an interesting approach. Sometimes I listen to something when I’m tired and about to fall asleep and for some reason by brain’s lower activity levels make it click with me lol
One take I always strongly disagreed with was Anthony's review of "Sea Of Worry" by Have A Nice Life. It's by no means their best work, but it's NOT a 3/10 album.
@@heelstevenmaggle5615 The thing about NOT GOOD reviews is that he js not just saying that an album is bad, he is saying that it has no artistic integrity. You can't say that a meshuggah album has no artistic value
I know I am a basic bitch for this but I disagreed with theneedledrop when he said he preferred The Anthropocene Extinction over Monolith of Inhumanity due to its grittier, less clean sound. I feel the contrast of the clean instruments to Travis' gross vocals is what made Monolith of Inhumanity so weird and iconic. There are tons of gritty albums out there that sound disgusting, but to make something clean sound disgusting? That is a much bigger challenge.
Did you watch the Paysage D'hiver review by Anthony during the last year? It was actually the first time one of his videos triggered me as hell, even though I'm obviously aware of it being nothing more than an opinion.
His statement about post rock was simply crass and uninformed. He isn't aware about bands like If These Trees Could Talk, And So I Watch You From Afar, We All Inherit The Moon, Tortoise, HiM (Doug Scharin band), 1099, Beast, Please Be Still, ef, Pray For Sound, Strafrænn Hakón, Jeniferever, té, LITE, Tides From Nebula, Kwoon etc.
he doesn't give a shit about 90% of the music I talk about in my blog (which by the way, I've been keeping longer than his channel). I.e. modern progressive rock/metal unless it's The Mars Volta, Everything Everything or Battles. He shit on Steven Wilson multiple times and he shit on The Dear Hunter. To me, his taste is about as narrow minded as Pitchfork and their nauseating hipster followers.
I too disagreed with him on Ghost’s Infestissumam. Out of their 4 albums so far, it is my least favourite of the 4 but I’d still give it like a solid 8/10
If you'd experienced SunnO))) live you might reconsider? Apart from Swans there's nothing that crushes your every fiber in a live setting, for mine. Visceral AF. Then on wax, you just have to play it fucken loud and then you start to get there... If drone doesn't do it for you, fair enough. It ain't everyone's cup of nux vomica. But it's hard to find something as close to an elephant sitting on your chest if you vibe on that sort of thing. Oddly, it can be really meditative in a darkly numinous way as well. Run a hot bath, rack a big line of K and drop the needle on that shit for some otherworldly way to spend an hour or two 😅 Each to their own.
About Vexovoid, I agree it definitly isn't generic compared to your average death metal album, but I do think it sounds fairly generic in context to the rest of their discography.
The fact that fantano has such a broad spectrum is his biggest weakness. because hell only have surface level knowledge about all the different genres. literally all of his metal reviews sucks because he doesnt have enough knowledge or vocabulary to actually form a valid opinion
Metal and hip-hop are allegedly the two genres Fantano is most accustomed to. He might have found his 90s favorites and therefore makes little effort to get into newcomers
Another one of the people that changed my music taste into a bigger variety and I do love watching his videos. And your videos interest me to get into other metal bands Wyatt.
The only times I've truly left a Fantano video in confusion disagreement were with Vexovoid, Dystopia, and Meshuggah's - The Violent Sleep of Reason. Especially Meshuggah, as that review seemed quite unfair. However, most of the time his criticisms are valid enough that I can't even fight it when I disagree, hahaha.
But he wasn't banned for freedom of speech issue, tyler made it a freedom of speech issue, he was actually banned from the UK because he had a pending criminal case. In principle I agree with you, its just that case was utter bullshit as to why he was banned from the uk basically tyler was telling fibs.
While I can just just be fine with Fantano's opinions, out of any opinion I can't agree with is his borderline meh behavior with Prog. He endlessly complains about how ANY prog band (Dream Theater and Steven Wilson come to mind) always is "sterile and clean and formulaic" and seems to be more like the people who think the only good prog album is _In the Court of the Crimson King._
I agree partly to his takes about modern progressive rock. Sure, I wouldn't use Steven Wilson as an example.. his music is seldom sterile at all, but bands like Soen, Leprous, Haken and The Mars Volta are
I had no idea this fantano guy was such a big deal. I watched maybe one video and found the guy obnoxious and told RU-vid to stop recommending his vids
Yes, post rock, like any genre, has a lot of forgettable music in it, but I agree with Wyattxhim that there’s a lot of good post rock out there as well.
I think my biggest disagreement comes from his review of The Parallax II: Future Sequence by Between The Buried And Me. He gave that album a 4/10, and I think it easily deserves an 8 or 9.
Fantano is maybe THE biggest RU-vid music reviewer, and he has a deep love and appreciation for extreme metal that no one else at his level of prominence has, he may be the single best evangelist out there for our music
There's been plenty of times I've disagreed with Anthony, but the ones that spring to mind are: Opeth's Heritage - can't stand the last two Opeth albums, but I fucking love Heritage. I believe he gave it a 5 and said it sounded too regressive, but I think it's one of the most experimental and liberated efforts. Ghost's Infestissumam - exact same reasons as you; my least favourite Ghost album but still a high-7. Neurosis' Fires Within Fires - I fucking love Neurosis, but Fires Within Fires was a very tame and uninteresting album imo, yet he ranked it at an 8, a superior score to Honor Found In Decay, which was a MUCH better album.
it's illogical to focus on multiple genres at the same time and to be able to give a an acceptable review.... Like you focus on death metal , and it's just Death, Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, The Black Dahlia Murder, At The Gates, Necrophagist and those are your only references and then neo-pop: just Adele, Florence and The Machine, Katy Perry, Rihanna, Ariana Grande and then alt rock; Weezer, Placebo, Muse, Radiohead, RHCP ,.... and then electronic: just Massive Attack, Faithless, David Guetta, Netsky, Avicii,.... how the f does that work practically ??????????? how can you decently critize music then???? people should just focus on a some genres, NOT ALL AT THE SAME TIME if you wanna give be a good critic you gotta follow EVERYTHING in a genre from the most active popular (Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Morbid Angel), and cult popular (Death, Possessed, Autopsy) to persistant veterans that never made it big (Incantation, Malevolent Creation, Grave), to the new retro bands (Skeletal Remains, Entrails, Carnation), to new wave retro that started experimenting (Morbus Chron, Horrendous, Tribulation), to cult maxed out tech wizardry (Necrophagist, Gorguts, Obscura), and as much as possible of the little underground demo bands from all over the world !!!!
Ah yes, melonhead. He thinks that Sunn O))) represent the pinnacles of music and bangs on about Hip-Hop the rest of the time. He is a hipster fo' sure.
About the Revenge album, I think that Fantano said, that he is basing his scores on his personal enjoyment of the album. So he could have appreciated everything about the album musically, but it just didn't click with him personally.
Listening to Sunn, I rather just listen to old post-punk bands that have the same sounds that appear in these long ass tracks. The drums remind me of post-punk and everything else just seems like it lacks any sort of meaning, It's simply noise inspired by Burzum's drawn out riffs. In fact I would rather listen to Burzum which isn't as "EXPERIMENTAL MAAN, THIS IS REAL MUSIC", but it has actual meaning in its music and you feel it through the sound. It makes people who say metal is "just noise" seem right, lol
