Weighing Souls With Sand

I can see why people would dislike this LP, but to me it exemplifies the raw, terrifying power that music can wield. Maximal shoegaze instrumentation, wall-to-wall production that leaves nowhere to hide, and a dark touch of melodicism yield an album that evokes what it would be like to live within an all-encompassing sonic tornado. Though the tracks here feel slightly disconnected from one another and EP-like rather than a full album, the experience was still absolutely insane from one end of the hour to the other. Wish the list had more daring picks like this one – this has been one of my favorite finds so far.

Is this gonna be more modern post rock? ffs. Yep. Boooooooooooooring. It thinks so highly of itself (look at that title), but it's just.... nothing. Minimalist crap for pretentious dickheads. Fuck you. 1/5.

I wasn't expecting someone to submit this album, but I'm really glad they did. This is a fantastic album with a truly tragic story. This album feels like sinking in quicksand.

Most bands that say they're influenced by My Bloody Valentine are boring (exception- Mogwai). Where this crosses it with doomy, droney metal, it's anything but. Like a bleak warm bath.

Rating: 9/10 Best songs: We all die laughing, Dying in A-minor, The resonance of goodbye

Ambient dark metal with touches of industrial, shoegaze and post-rock. Long instrumental tracks with clear melodic vocals at times. A quite sinister background story explains Kris Angylus' intents here. Very cinematic, with a few heartrending harmonies bobbing out from those desperate abysses in some of its most pivotal moments. Like a mix of Jesu, My Bloody Valentine, The History Of Colour TV, Mondkopf and The Haxan Cloak, tainted with more metal-adjacent references I would be hard-pressed to pinpoint. The mix is murky, but in that overall genre, such technical "flaws" actually add to the despondent mood. Pretty sure this album can't make it to my list of keepers from 2007, but it's still worth listening to for anyone interested in that sort of despondent-yet-extremely-evocative music style. Metal can still be open-minded without sounding like a cheesefest farce, and thus come off as personal and intense instead. Looks like I'm still unable to swallow that stupid Nightwish album added to the users list, that I had to deal with the other day, ha ha. 3.5/5 for the purposes of this list of essential albums, rounded up to 4 8.5/10 for more general purposes (5 + 3.5) Number of albums from the original list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 465 Albums from the original list I *might* include in mine later on: 288 Albums from the original list I won't include in mine: 336 ---- Number of albums from the users list I find relevant enough to be mandatory listens: 13 Albums from the users list I *might* select for mine later on: 20 (including this one) Albums from the users list I won't select for mine: 37

This is not music meant to make you feel comfortable, and that’s exactly why it’s worth hearing. On the surface, or maybe at a first listen, it can sound like one unbroken wall of sound, but it’s anything but. The album is built from carefully dark and heavy layered textures that only started to reveal themselves on my second listen. I guess I was a lot more susceptible to the album today than I was yesterday. Because despite my initial thought, it’s surprisingly accessible. The melodies are clear enough to follow, even through all the distortion, and when I gave it my full attention, it really connected. I found this to be a majestic, challenging and adventurous record. Thanks to submitter!

Interesting wall of noise somewhere between shoegaze and industrial. Several good songs, some are a bit too long and interchangeable.

I was definitely judging a book by its cover on this one (weird cringe emo stuff) and ended up being somewhat correct (ambient emo noise rock). Honestly I got excited when I saw that it was inspired by mbv but I hear more sad ambient noise than anything overtly shoegaze. Bet this goes hard at satanic heroin raves tho.

Horrible, boring trash.

My missus said "this is enough to give you a brain hemorrhage, it's Shite!" For that reason alone it gets 5/5 from me. Seriously, I'm interested in this Drone Metal genre- very atmospheric and brooding.

What a depressing wall of noise, I absolutely loved it!

Heavy cinematic orchestral metal. A great time!

This album really falls into a sweet spot for me. The combination of metal and shoegaze definitely scratches an itch in my brain. I could see how lots of folks would not care for this album since it's so noisy, but I thought it was really well executed overall, though I think the production could have been a little cleaner in places 4/5

I saw this and thought "oh god ambient drone metal shoegaze... sounds exhausting". Fuck this hit me in the right spot. I love shoegaze and normally am not a big metal person, but this worked. My personal rating: 4/5 My rating relative to the list: 4/5 Should this have been included on the original list? No.

This is like a musical weighted blanket. Strangely comforting, insanely heavy soundscapes. The MBV and Boris influences are very clear. Wish the album sequencing was a bit better done. Like another reviewer mentioned, this really does feel like a collection of disconnected songs rather than a full album. Still love it though. 4/5.

The sort of album I want to hear on this list

I wouldn't have guessed that this album would be coming up here. A welcome change of pace from the usual styles that are covered by user submissions (and the original list entries). Mighty atmospheres conjured

Today I have reviewed Amon Düül II, Type O Negative and now The Angelic Process - might be time for something a bit lighter soon. Contender for heaviest inclusion on this list so far. Droning, experimental and heavily influenced by shoegazing - it’s a massive album (both in sound and scale) that’s definitely not for everyone.

Shit's heavy - heavy music, heavy subject matter, and heavy band history. I enjoyed the droning with heavy shoegaze influences and production. 7/10.

Intense, nuanced, dirgeful sound. Not for every day, but I thought this was quite good. It's a bit challenging on the ears, but contrasting quieter moments with the heavier walls of sound keeps the whole thing from getting too overwhelming. Fave Songs: Dying in A-minor, Mouvement - World Deafening Eclipse, The Promise of Snakes

Not opposed to this.... it is a really cool sound. Just a wall of dark noise that ebbs and flows, with the occasional incoherent lyrics underneath. I definitely enjoy the aspect of just having this wash over me. The problem is that it just feels so muffled, clipped and muddy that everything blends into the same sound. After listening to this album, i'm sure I couldn't pick out a single track if you played it to me again and asked "was this one on the album?" So though I liked the unusual experience, I'm not sure there is much to call out.

I'd expected this to be way more difficult to digest than it turned out to be. Sure, it's sloooow, it's looooow, and it's not painting a particular upbeat picture. But I could dig it.

You can hear the tornment on each and every note. Quite a sad life-story of these artists. Musicaly wasn't really my kind of thing. But it was listenable

Sure, compress the everloving f-k out of everything and you definitely end up with a sound... It sort of turns all sounds into percussion or at best a minimally tuneful ambient wash. Lyrics are incomprehensible, whichis a shame as it seems.like he had something to say. For all these gripes there is something there, but the methodology here nearly wipes it out.

Heavy heavy

Metal in it's largest, most crushing form. The Angelic Process takes long, winding roads that are dense in gloomy atmosphere and mesmerizing sound. In its weight, Weighing Souls With Sand evokes images of a slow death that comes with a large release of brain chemicals, swirling around as life flashes before your eyes. It's a lot! It's also fairly slow, and a bit samey around the edges. I think this droning sort of metal is better executed by the likes of Boris, though I appreciate what this album accomplishes in it's runtime. Perhaps the biggest drawback is the drums, which sound programmed to a point where it distracts from the more natural-sounding guitarwork. An interesting album for sure, but not quite good enough in my eyes. CONTENDER FOR THE LIST: This subgenre of metal is too niche for the list imo, so no.

Interesting listen. Hadn’t come across this previously.

However much it's said to be influenced by MBV, it should have been more so. One's intrigued by how far away the whole thing sound – the effect of a hushed distance prevents one from feeling overwhelmed by the heaviness and volume. "Dying in A Minor" sums things up pretty well. Still, it's better than Metallica and list proper might be improved by such a switch-out.

Like someone drilling the centre of your brain in a not too unpleasant way

so intense

Alrighty, this is definitely not my thing. I see the appeal, but it was just too long with “nothing” going on. Obviously there wasn’t actually nothing, but I couldn’t find anything to latch onto. Maybe that’s reflective of poor writing, or maybe I, as a listener, should have tried harder. Nevertheless (whatever that means), this album was consistent, had range, and I can’t complain too much besides its seemingly unearned length. 3/5

Didn't care for this. 2 stars.

Heavy going

Drone metal, ambient, shoegaze. Un tostón. No me ha gustado. Un 2.

Weighing Souls With Sand has some real potential at the start of this album, it explodes into your ears with a raw, deafening angst-ridden sound full of emotion, but then it just does all of that for an hour with hardly any notable differences from song to song. It gets tired very quickly, which is disappointing, and only warrants a 2. I could listen to any one of these songs and not be able to tell you what it's called or what the point of it was, but I'd still probably enjoy most of that track for what it is.

The Wikipedia article says this album was in the style of doom metal and that couldn’t have been more accurate in description. This felt very ominous like I was about to be struck down. It wasn’t really that great either. It was a dark lurking album that was unique instrumentally but felt a bit one dimensional. 4.2/10

I didn’t think I would remember this album as I listened to it 5 days ago. And then I did remember and I wish I hadn’t. It was noise.

I like experimental noise. This was a 1 track trick

i had no idea this was its own genre of ambient doom metal or whatever... it's not for me. I think i need a bit less ambient.

Experiential bro stadium rock

Pretty cool in places, outrageously ponderous in places. The names of the songs and the album art are so brutals they edge into entertaining; I kind of love them, tbh, but I can't say this album provides what I usually look for in a music listening experience. I don't hate it but I don't need it, either.

It definitely grew on me but I don't think I'd pick it up to listen to.

The drumming is pretty good

Orchestral post rock ambient doom/dark metal. We're getting a bit niche here. Ar time it feels like a MBV tribute. Nah.

Kinda all blended together for me to be honest. It's very muddy. Maybe a better recording could've improved it.

It's a tough listen, and one that I didn't make it all the way through. I think set against up against a visual background, it may have more appeal, but it felt to me that I was walking through a dark museum exhibit where I couldn't really understand what was going on.

Would rather fill my ass with soul sand than listen to this again

I’m pretty sure this broke my AirPods

I felt it was closer to noise than music. Terrible acoustic filth. A sort of dull, hypnotic melody that leads nowhere.

This was definitely different… too different for me to enjoy at all. But quite emotional! Just painful which maybe is the point but I can’t do it.

My least favourite of the user-submitted albums so far. I don’t want to be too harsh as the album deals with a quite heavy subject matter and clearly means a lot to quite a few people based on some of the reviews. It’s great that it has provided that catharsis, and the best thing about music is that different music can resonate with different people in completely different ways. That being said I just did not vibe with this. Everything was so reverbed and distorted that it was unintelligible, and the few bits of clean vocals that cut through sounded really rough. On top of that it was all just quite boring as well. There wasn’t really any song structure or development - each track just relied on these thick shoegazy textures, and the textures sounded bad

Nah Not for me

Oh wow. This is a strong contender for the worst possible type of music - shoegaze and doom metal. Probably the only the thing that could be any worse might be "Bob Dylan does shoegaze" or maybe 'Merle Haggard does shoegaze, with backing by the Manic Street Preachers". Oh ffs, it's over an hour long, too. Yeah, I have given this a try. I got about a fortnight into it before realising that it was never going to win me over. Euch.

This had absolutely no redeeming qualities

I guess it’s kind of impressive that this manages to be both boring and unpleasant at the same time?

Sounds like the terrible soundtrack for a horror movie, but a C-list horror movie. I know that music is subjective and people have other tastes than I do and I can maybe see why people enjoy certain types of music, but not this. This was random noises not well put together or composed.