10 of the most disappointing metal albums ever

Have you ever been massively anticipating a band's new album, or discovered a new band whose shit you just seem to absolutely love, only to discover that most of their discography isn't at all the same quality as that which you discovered them through? I can be honest when I say that I rarely get disappointed by an album by bands I like, really just about whatever band it is in question. But sometimes, hell yeah, I have felt failed by my sworn idols.

Now, I really do support artistic freedom. After all - as a musician myself, I'd like to do whatever the fuck I want to do, but sometimes...your supporters just won't accept it. I'm gonna list ten albums down below that I felt disappointed about. This does not necessarily mean that I completely dislike the album, not at all, but simply that it (like really) didn't live up to my expectations, or just felt too different. Here we go...


10. DevilDriver - Beast 

When this album hit in 2011 I wasn't exactly stoked - I wasn't really the bigget DevilDriver fan at that time, yet, but I knew them a little bit and I was fairly new to modern metal, so I figured I'd give 'em a fair chance. Well, after a fair chance I thought it was fair enough to say that it was one big disappointment. I didn't look back on it for several years after that, but these days I'm quite keen on their sound - like 'em a lot. However, while this certainly is not bad by any means, this does not really remain among my favorite DD albums either.


9. Chimaira - Crown Of Phantoms

I started listening to Chimaira in 2009 when they released "The Infection", which is my favorite album of theirs btw. They were, together with Lamb of God, like the first bands of modern metal that I came to appreciate. However, after a lot of touring for "The Infection", half of the band left, including powerhouse drummer Andols Herrick and their most unique addition to their sound, keyboardist/electronics specialist Chris Spicuzza. They made another album, "The Age Of Hell", in 2011 which wasn't really well received (I love it, though), and then both of the bands' longtime guitarists Rob Arnold and Matt DeVries left too.

2013 came and an all-new Chimaira, apart from ever-lasting frontman Mark Hunter, delivered "Crown Of Phantoms". What can I say about it? Some people think it kicks ass while others seem to dislike it. I, personally, just don't feel like it was Chimaira anymore. I mean, it obviously sounds completely like another band to me. The guitars (especially the solo stuff) and drums have different vibes and styles compared to before, which is logical, but just not the same. I simply just didn't like its sound and direction very much, and (un)fortunately(?) they broke up after this album. As I see it, it was for the better - the original band was already gone since a long time, and it didn't sound like Chimaira anymore. Yet, it's fucking sad that they're not around anymore.


8. Mötley Crüe - Theatre Of Pain

After a great debut album in "Too Fast For Love" and even greater follow-up in the legendary "Shout At The Devil", the Crüe traded in the red and black satanic leathers and imagery for happy-colored women's clothing with dots and shit on 'em. I just think their new image spoke for itself in the music as well - having closed the "Shout At The Devil" album with a song called "Danger", it was the last time the Crüe actually sounded and/or appeared dangerous as well. On this one, they just sound like whatever fucking party glam band there ever was. Some tunes are still good though, but I hate most of it.


7. Life of Agony - Ugly

After unleashing the lyrically deep, musically awesome and just ripping debut "River Runs Red" in 1993, as well as some great hardcore demos before it, Brooklyn's LoA released this in 1995. It's not a bad album, but it's fucking let down after the assault the debut provided. This just sounds a lot more "safe" and influenced by alternative/grunge music (something that would only progress further on later albums as well). Mjah, I just never quite felt this album.


6. Iron Maiden - No Prayer For The Dying

I love Iron Maiden but after ten years they released this piece of shit. Yes, I called it that. I'm not a fucking fanboy - if a band, even if I really love 'em, releases a shit record, I will regard it as such. This was a shit record, kind of acknowledged by Steve Harris himself as well, but I was okey with it. Why was I? Because Maiden worked hard for over a decade, provided seven(!) amazing albums throughout the 80's, lost one of their key-writers (and my favorite writer in Maiden) in guitarist Adrian Smith the year before this album. They had a lot to live up to, and they failed this time around. It was understandable after so many years and albums. Sometime there must be a shit record. This was their first one (of very few). They compensated this failure with several amazing albums in the 2000's instead.


5. Megadeth - Th1rt3en

Dave Mustaine and his many different setups of company have been riding a lengthy roller-coaster when it comes to good and bad albums. They started off greatly with some awesome thrash albums in the 80's, then they made the highly acclaimed "Rust In Peace" which I actually never were very fond of, before jumpin' on Metallica's "black album-train" like so many others. They did the melodic "Youthanasia" in 1994 which I love, but after that they fucking lost it - well, until 2004's "The System Has Failed" anyway.

Dave and some of his companies did "United Abominations" and "Endgame" in the late 00's which I really liked as well, but after those came "Th1rt3en" - a mix of re-worked old vault songs as well as some new stuff, if I remember correctly. Well, I'd like to think that there was a reason for much of this material to have been scrapped before - and much of it should've just stayed that way.

This whole album is just a mix of aged turds that Dave and co. in vain tried to polish up. Some stuff here, especially lyrics, make me fucking cringe. I cannot shake the thought that this is the same mastermind who wrote "Peace Sells", "In My Darkest Hour" or "A Tout Le Monde". This album is just plain fucking crap, and fans were surprised by how shitty "Super Collider" was. Let me tell you, after this piece of crap I didn't expect anything from "Super Collider" at all, but I actually prefer that one over this seasoned crap collection. At least that was experimental and explored new ideas, for better or (probably) worse.


4. Danzig - Skeletons

Glenn Danzig - legendary frontman and musician - love the guy's works - from the Misfits to, well, Danzig. He announced in, like, 2011 or something already, that he was working on a covers album. I didn't think much about it, his music hadn't been all that great since 1994, even if I did really enjoy "6:66 Satan's Child" and "Deth Red Sabaoth".

Anyway, this album was finally released in 2015 - so it was at least four years in the making. Let's just say that... Glenn is cool, he's still got a nice voice, but his fucking band (especially Tommy Victor of Prong on guitar) is just so wrong for Danzig's music, not to mention that Glenn's own production skills sound like shite. Half of the covers on here aren't that interesting or good either, unfortunately. Let's just say that it was a too long wait for almost nothing. Glenn should stick to making originals - his original arrangements for covers on this album were the only good ones as well.


3. Spread Eagle - Open To The Public

Not many people know this band but they were a sleaze band that came out with their most excellent debut in 1990. Think a punkier and/or thrashier version of Skid Row, even if you think of "Slave To The Grind". These guys were from NYC, not L.A. They were raw - not polished.

Anyway, their debut went by pretty much unnoticed, which is a real fucking shame (it's actually my favorite album of genre glam/sleaze - ever). Three years later they release their follow-up and ultimately last album - "(Spread Eagle -) Open To The Public" (ha, that's funny). The first song is really cool, I like a lot, but after that one is just one endless fucking shitfest of boring songs leaning more towards alternative crap than their original sound. Disappointing to say the least.


2. Fate - Cruisin' For A Bruisin'

These guys are from Denmark and released a really nice debut in 1985. It was actually Hank Shermann from Mercyful Fate who went on to form this band after MF disbanded, but it's not the same musical style. These guys were more towards the same sound as, let's say early Europe, early Bon Jovi, and such likes. However, the guitar tone and style was just the same as on MF's "Don't Break The Oath" album, so it was still fucking cool. Next they did another album where the guitar was turned down a lot in favor of keyboards, you figure the rest. It was an okey album but Hank Shermann left after that one in 1986.

Now, fast forward to 1988 and Fate's third album - this sausage fest. I have honestly don't listened to this album too many times throughout the years, and I will let the reason for that be obvious. I'll just tell you - if you hate Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet", Europe's "Out Of This World", or...whatever, then you'll fucking hate this one too. It's just one of the shittiest records I've ever heard, and a most disappoint album (and direction) after their great debut three years prior to this one. Fear not though, Fate actually redeemed themselves already in 1990, and also in latter years, with several (at least) solid albums again.


1. Mötley Crüe - Dr. Feelgood

And the winner of this shitfest sausage makarov blöjkaka is the very same band that is now also officially listen twice on this list: Mötley Crüe. First off, let me tell you. I am a huge fan of the Crüe's first two albums as well as "Girls, Girls, Girls", but obviously "Theatre Of Pain" wasn't on par with those to my ears, and this album...well.

Let me just put it like this: when a formerly constantly drugged-out band did a few great records, and they all of sudden decide to get sober to do an album, it can only end in one way: this way. And let me tell you, the Crüe's music lost all of its fucking balls when the drugs went out of the picture. This is truly the most disappointing record I've ever heard in my life. I just think Mötley Crüe should be junkies, that's the way they did great music. This shit is just lame, like glam metal for middle-aged moms who'd like to party while believing themselves to still be 20 when they're really 40. Fuck this shit.

The Top-5 Worst XBOX 360 Games In My Collection.

I have about 70-80 games for Xbox 360 and I have had more before. This is a list of the five worst games I ever had, that I've been the most disappointed or frustrated with, or simply have a pure hatred against now. So let's go ...


5. Borderlands (2009)

I love wasteland-themed movies and games, post-apocalyptic sci-fi style with the classic, cliché desert savages, small town camps, and super vehicles and so on. One really good game with these features is Rage, but unfortunately I can't say the same thing for this game. I bought this because it was supposed to be such a good game that very many people's got, but I guess opinions still relies in oneself and not the public. While not necessarily a very bad game in its classic sense, I found it pretty mediocre-boring while playing it by myself.

As I only played it once by myself, I've had it laying around for times when I have friends over so we could play it in co-op mode, which is a hell lotta more fun. But not anymore ... I'm generally a solid FPS games, half of my games are FPS I imagine and I've been playing FPS games almost exclusively lately. The last time we played though, we pretty much died once a minute. I mean it was really frustrating. I had the best weapons I had been able to find / buy and just shot, shot and shot the enemies, at times in the face for a long time - almost whole mags - without them dying! I mean, that sucks so badly. It's not even fun anymore when it gets like that. I rage-quitted the game and don't wanna play it now. It's very repetitive anyways, too. So ultimately - I did not like Borderlands.


4. Crackdown (2006)
 
This was one of my like 5-7 first games I ever got for the Xbox 360. At the time I had an old white Premium 20 GB, which is kind of nostalgic now. The reason I wanted this game was because not too many games really interested me, besides Grand Theft Auto IV that is. I'm a huge GTA nerd and it was pretty much the only series I played for some years in the mid to late 2000's. So looking up other, "similar" sand-box / free-roam kind of games, I found out about Crackdown. I got it from my stepdad who worked in a kind of media-disc warehouse where they had movies and games, so he brought a copy home. Since I didn't have too many games at the time, I believe I played this one quite a lot, almost finishing it actually. Though I played it so much, I couldn't help but to feel that it was very repetitive all the way through.

It's really the same thing you do over and over and over again from the beginning to the end, and I hate that with games. I really think game developers should actually develope a game, not develope a mission, repeat it lots of times and call it a game. You're a super-cop or agent or whatever, and you can jump and climb on buildings, collect green orps and then you assassinate some drug dealers, mafia bosses or whatever. It's really the same route over and over in this game with everything, not a very fun one at that. Needless to say, I got tired of it before I finished it and stopped playing it.


3. Duke Nukem Forever (2011)

I'm gonna stay short on this one. 14 years in development, the hopes of the gamers pretty much dead, no high expectations anymore, this was bound to fail.
I played Duke Nukem 3D as a kid, maybe I played the others too, I don't remember anymore. I got this without really expecting anything from it rather than the obvious - that is was gonna be bad. Therefore, I wasn't too surprised either. This game lacks pretty much everything it shouldn't. The graphics are horrible as they differ from stage-to-stage in the game, pretty mediocre / lame gameplay overall and the humour wasn't really that funny no more neither. Bulletstorm, also released in 2011, is what Duke Nukem Forever should've been. But ey, at least I had that 3D poster on my wall for a while.


 2. Fable III (2010)

First off, I never played the original Fable game, I started with Fable II for Xbox 360 maybe a year ago? I liked that game, pretty much playing it non-stop until I finished it. As Fable III had already been out for a while at that point, I had heard things about it and no good things, I can tell you. Actually, what I heard about it was so much bashing that I kind of thought it was ridicolous, really. So then one day I was at the local media store and found it for 99 Swedish kronor (about 13-14 bucks), so I thought I'd get it, it wasn't so much money to lose anyway.

So I came home and started playing it. At first I didn't really think too much of it, I was just kinda trying to see if it either sucked or was better than people say. As time went by I started to recognize the issues pretty much "everybody" had been talking about. I also found myself missing Fable II a lot during the playthrough of this. It's certainly a huge step down in every good way that was Fable II, and then I've heard that the second one was kind of that to the first one as well. But I liked the second, after a short while I did not think fondly of the third. I did finish it, however, but it wasn't too long either so I guess that explains it. I was ultimately very disappointed with this game. A huge let-down after the great Fable II.


1. Dead Island (2011)

And here's the crowned winner of my top-5 worst Xbox 360 games in my collection! This game is pretty much everything bad about a game and I don't think I've never been more frustrated by a game than with this stupid piece of shit! I generally love zombie games and have a bunch of them - Left 4 Dead 1 and 2, Dead Rising 1 and 2, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare,  and I had the first four Resident Evil games and I even played the zombie bonus on Call of Duty: Black Ops, but this motherfucker takes the fucking cake for being a real bad, piece-of-shit-game which should never have been released! It's a fucking blasphemy amongst zombie games.

I bought this a while back after it dropped in price (THANK GOD I did that ...), at a cost of 199 Swedish kronor (about 25-27 bucks I think?), a price which is just too much for this crap. I do realize that I'm using lots of silly words and shit right now, but it's just my angry fucking frustration of this game that is getting out through my fingertips. I somebody mentions this game to me I also get in a very bad mood because it reminds me that I payed that much money for this shit!

Where Left 4 Dead are the zombie games I currently like the most, especially the first one (I thought the second was a little flawed and mediocre and that game frustrated me some as well, but that's another story), this is pretty much an obvious rip-off of Left 4 Dead. Now the style of this typical zombie-apocalypse themed game is pretty much bound to be "like the rest", especially Left 4 Dead when it's an FPS game, but the ripping-off doesn't end there. This is very much a total rip-off of Left 4 Dead - its "special infected zombies" looks similar too and ARE similar to Left 4 Dead's special infected. The boomers are here called Floater, the tanks are called Ram, hunters are Butcher, and so on. It feels so obvious that I get really mad at this game. How little imagination can there be to come up with some original ideas for special zombies? Very little I see!

The gameplay is probably even worse. I think it's kind of flawed in many ways. It's like often very frustrating when fighting zombies and you clearly see / feel / know you're hitting them, yet they get no damage and damage YOU instead. I also don't really like their melee-weapon system, that weapons break and you have to repare them (for large sums of hard-found cash!). I mean, it could be there to make the game more challenging, but I think the weapons break way too fast in the game = frustrating. It's also unbelieveably repetitive. Every mission is the same over and over. You go to some motherfucker and get a task to do for them, then you go do it. Now this is mostly retrieving things around the world for them as they're not bad-ass enough to fight the zombies themselves. The things are mostly unimportant shit too, the prime example being some girl in a bungalow who wants her fucking TEDDYBEAR back, which is located half-way across the fucking map! Was the teddybear meant to be funny or something? It certainly was NOT, just fucking irritating, nothing else. The people are often cocky or ungrateful towards you as well, making me think of how I hate most people in real life = making me angry. As said, it's very much the same thing over and over and it gets boring and uninspired real fast. Many times during these missions you also encounter other motherfuckers mid-mission, maybe denying you entry or passing if you don't GO BACK A WHOLE FUCK-LONG WAY to get them a fucking apple or whatever! During these encounters I just felt like I wanted to kill them and go on, but guess what - YOU FUCKING CAN'T! WHY did they leave out the option to chose whether to be good or bad? It would've been better if you were able to chose to be bad and kill survivors as well, but no. So when the missions were already irritating and boring, they make it even worse with all these stupid characters!

Now this is also a level-game. You get points, level up, yada yada yada, you get the point. The thing is though, no matter how fucking much you level-up, upgrade your feats ans so on, the zombies also levels up as much as you do, and the shit you upgrade pretty much doesn't make any difference, not a big anyways, meaning that this game's level-system is fucking worthless as you never get superior to the zombies anyway! On top of that new special-infected are regularly added to the world, making the level-sytem even more and more and more worthless all the time. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK were they thinking?! It also hasn't got a manual save option and the auto saving system sucks just as much as everything else in this game. There's an icon which flashes (if I remember right) when it's saving, but it does that at odd times so you can pretty much never quit when you want without being sure if it's saving or not, making it even. more. frustrating! The characters are nothing funny either. They're boring, uninspiredly created and just typically done like "we gotta have each of one race". As for the facial expressions, well they doesn't exist in this game. Surprised? They always look the same neutral, bored, fuck-faced fucking way and the dialogue is worthless as well. *Sigh*

This game is so fucking bad, I HATE it. It's not fun, it's not good, the mechanics, graphics and so on are either very bad or average. I've never been more angry, frustrated or even disappointed I think I dare to say, than with this fucking game. It's the worst thing I've ever played on Xbox 360 and I almost finished it, too! Go on and get Left 4 Dead instead. It's the same game but a thousand times better, only it hasn't got an open-world format. If you must have that, go and get Dead Island instead. It's a TPS game, but a hell lotta better than this. Dead Island is bad. Bad, bad, BAD! Fuck this game, don't buy it.