#1 [url]

Jul 16 14 12:54 AM

GOOKY'S QUEST FOR METAL: EPILOGUE

So I went to go and listen to Redeemer of Souls and... suddenly realised I had no idea what to do. I mean I spent some time figuring out how to hook up the turntable to the stereo, then opened up the album and went to play it. Then I was like "...what now?" Usually I'm in the car driving somewhere when I listen to stuff, I've never really just sat down and listened to something before.

So that's exactly what I did. I found the spot in front of the speakers that sounded best and pointed them inwards, then plonked myself down - which just so happened to sound even better than when standing up. Eventually I took to lying on the floor, just staring at the ceiling while listening to the sound and feel it all rumble through the floorboards.

It was pretty good. About the same as most of my other first listenings to the later albums, they all really grew on me over time. Metalizer and Battle Cry stand out as favourites.

One thing I noticed though - I mean I'm no audiophile or anything, probably even the opposite. But I think I see this whole "loudness war" thing. I went through the album on vinyl and that was all great, but when that was done I had to go get the second disc from the CD. And with that I noticed on the little equaliser graph thing on the stereo, while all the levels were mostly centred around the middle line and showed some nice curves above that as the music played, as soon as the CD started everything was maxing out most of the bars most of the time. And overall it made it sound kind of "flat"? I dunno, could just be psychosomatic. But yeah, much preferred listening to the vinyl despite the clicks and pops here and there.

Also, perfect timing. The last song finished just before the parents got home \o/