Releases that you didn't think was too good, but grew to be memorable?

[FreakAnimalFinland]

Back in the day, when amount of incoming music was way smaller, most albums I got, tend to be slightly challenging at first, but then grew to be absolute favorites. When being kid, and hearing AC/DC for the first time, odd nearly "screaming" voice seemed so extreme and challenging after popular music. Or hearing thrash metal for the first time and not really figuring out is this even music, yet being drawn to it instantly. Hearing certain grindcore, hc, black metal and such. First just able to hear pure white noise. Step by step proceeding of hearing actual noise for the first time and wondering what exactly I am supposed to hear?

What all these had in common, was that first time, it didn't feel too good. Listening Bathory or Necrosanct for the first time, seemed like chaotic noise. Yet, as there wasn't flood of other material, one could spend hours... days.. weeks.. and finally release would grow and become absolute favorite.

This process is now very different, first of all, since amount of material is different. It's unlikely to spin something new 50 times, when there are hundreds of releases waiting to be listened and tens of thousands great ones you would like to re-listen... And secondly, at this point, listener is usually experienced enough to grasp even small details of release, already in 1-2 listening sessions.

Still, in recent months, I find myself appreciation A LOT of releases, that I didn't think was that amazing, when I first was listening them. It is possible that this is because I have been wanting to hear something else at the time. For example, now listening DEATH ODORS compilations, just day before it was discussed in noisextra episode (not as main topic, just as part of recent listening), I concluded how damn good representations of style and era they are. Continued to listening things like Raison D'Etre albums, which were far more complex, physical and dark than I remembered. Or Mnem "for delta relics" CD that was discussed on this forum not long ago, and concluding that while bands excellency is undeniable, I probably didn't grasp how special they were in Finland at the time!

Listening has lead to dig deep into CD shelves, pulling out Nucturnal Emissions, some particular CCCC titles that I don't listen so often. Swans titles I didn't care much within their discography. List of names could be long. The New Blockaders titles I didn't consider among their best, but may have to adjust my opinion, etc. Seeing how a lot of releases that had made only vague impact, turns out now to be very very impressive. Enjoying Extreme Music From Japan so much, it made me to dive into compilations that are notch more recent, like Japanoise of Death - which back then didn't seem that special, due being made after so many other Japanese compilations. Yet listening it now, some seriously good tracks there, even if it may not have as memorable impact as Noise Forest, Come Again II, EMFJ etc..

So question:
Releases you didn't care much or didn't leave impact, but that grew over the year, or was re-discovered?

[brutalist_tapes]

i used to think that operation cleansweep was nothing but a GO clone the first couple of times i listened to their albums. for some reason i kept coming back, and now their records are some of my all time PE favorítes... same w/bizarre uproar, actually.. at first i didn't like the harsh noise-esque focus on scrap metal and feedback instead of synthesizer sounds... now i can't get enough and it is one of my favorite active projects. the same could be said about the more challenging no-fi black metal.. absurd, ildjarn, wehrhammer, fullmoon.. used to be totally in the dark as to why people liked these bands, but now i consider those bands classic. but this is interesting topic, because when is something just shit? i mean, not every feedback/scrap-based gutter electronics project is BU, not every lo-fi drum machine black metal is fullmoon or wehrhammer.. they just have that certain "something" that can be hard to grasp, when the music "logically" should be shit, if you catch my drift. good topic!

[Bleed On Me]

Some years ago I was heavily into the "raw side" of industrial metal, the bands which worked with swans-related methods of strict & disciplined rhythmic violence - Broadrick's pre-godflesh dirges in Fall Of Because, the torturous sound of Skin Chamber ("Cop" + some hints of extreme punk + blasts of harsh noise), and some other good ones among the crowd of "godflesh relatives". I remember checking out Sonic Violence in those days. I had a good impression, but for a first listen, that was it - no instant "obsession". I guess I expected a more "in your face" type of punishing brutality at the moment - but the band sounded like a slightly more "attacking" type of gloomy & dystopian post-punk (something like Killing Joke or early Amebix at the stage of "Winter") to my ears. Despite all the sympathies towards that kind of cold and menacing post-punk, the expectations of something more instantly punching with violent power weren't quite fulfilled. Good thing that some time later I revisited "Jagd" without the obsession with the idea that all "industrial metal" should sound like Skin Chamber. Actually when you follow the structures of their militaristic rhythms without the preoccupations that "the bass sound should be much more sludgy" and "the vocals should instantly deliver over-the-top aggression", you realize that they pack that very precise, effective and physical rhythmic punch very few "guitar industrial" bands have.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avv1jfU8WrU

Another case - the music of Keiji Haino. In the days of fascination with Japanese guitar psych noise, the particular creative approach of this man still was hard to grasp. I remember being instantly blown away by bands involving Asahito Nanjo (High Rise, Mainliner), by Maso Yamazaki's Acid Eater, but those are quite obvious choices, since this kind of music works with catchy "Stooges-type" of riffs, entertaining Hendrix-style solo guitar freakouts and accessible groove, while enhancing the drive and "raw power" of the guitar with the signature "in the red" loudness overdose. On the contrast, Haino's attitude is much more obscure and abstract. With this  kind of loose structure, it takes quite a time to get the picture and start to appreciate the details. At first, something felt intriguing in the guitar tone alone - it wasn't that speaker-blowing motorbike roar, that attracted me in the likes of High Rise, it was more subtle yet more menacing - that cold, raw and sharp signature sound of Haino's guitar, the tortured high squeal or even metal screech giving a picture of flesh being peeled from the bones. After getting to appreciate the sound, I started to follow various schemes/patterns in which Haino's semi-improvised flow develops. Well, the more you listen to Haino's music, the more you understand, that his mastery in dynamics between withdrawn, silent tension and storming rage of swollen sound is one of a kind. Sometimes he can start with a sort of a blues pattern, but only to chop it into pieces and bury it into the ground as the composition develops. Sometimes his guitar just wriggles in lightning-spitting agony for an infinity. Sometimes he grinds relentless percussive attacks of dissected guitar noise, sounding like early Swans gone free improv. Well, you name it. When I first heard Fushitsusha, it was all about the peculiarity of a weird listening experience. It took multiple revisits over the years to come to full appreciation. Nowadays, I can't get enough of "The Caution Appears", "The Time Is Nigh" and '89 & '91 live records.

Fushitsusha made me remember of an obscure Ukrainian project called Schperrung - a side-project of local doom band Mozergush. Their case of stylistic evolution is an interesting one - the first two records are sort of ritual ambient on the base of weirdly processed guitar noise/drone loops with a strong medieval devil-worship aesthetic, but later they dwelled onto a territory very close to Haino's "black psychedelia" - bleak minimalism, agonizing improvised guitar, tortured vocals (more like mentally ill groans), overall feeling of disgust, ugliness, mental disorder. The project gets barely any attention. Minimum reaction from the doom crowd which likes Mozergush - no surprises about that. For a long time, I knew only about the first full-length. It was good to my ears, but back in the days I was in a rare mood for "ritual ambient" type of stuff. At some point I finally grasped their whole discography with the later releases - "Сон" and "House Of Horizons". Well, that was a sound journey worth taking - from ritualistic devil-worshipping drone-trance of the early days to the later suffocating nightmares with some definite flavor of Japanese improv weirdness.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myeO_fnGuc4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WblRs_fH4iw

[Gefühlloser]

Fushitsusha was like that when I first listened to it, but I had 16 year old ears then. Pathetique is one of the main albums I listen to when walking in the woods aimlessly. I've listened to it many times over the years.

I think with the excess of new stuff as said above, that this happens frequently to the point of where I don't always think much into it. I tend to assume that with repeated listens I'll pick up on new stuff that I didn't hear 2+ years ago or whatever. Can only consume so much in one life. I can't even think of an example that was extremely profound in recent days. All's I know is that it's getting cold, so I'm mostly reintroducing the sounds for winter that I haven't heard for awhile. 

[NO PART OF IT]

Merzbow's "Metamorphosis" was pretty dull to me at first.  Later on, I ended up liking it quite a bit.  It still has a certain understated quality about it that I grew to like, rather than be disappointed according to my initial expectations. 

[CMSFoundation]

Things like later period Hafler Trio ("Whistling About Chickens," the "Exactly as I ____" trilogy) or mid-'90s Illusion of Safety ("From Nothing to Less," "Water Seeks Its Own Level"), basically anything that's reviewed using the phrase "rewards patient listening" went past me when I was younger and not a patient listener. Now I'm all in on any/all eras of these projects.

[NO PART OF IT]

Things like later period Hafler Trio ("Whistling About Chickens," the "Exactly as I ____" trilogy) or mid-'90s Illusion of Safety ("From Nothing to Less," "Water Seeks Its Own Level"), basically anything that's reviewed using the phrase "rewards patient listening" went past me when I was younger and not a patient listener. Now I'm all in on any/all eras of these projects.

I am pretty sure it was "In Opposition to Our Acceleration" that was the first thing I ever heard by Illusion of Safety, as I was doing one of my first DJ sets at WZRD (2005 or so), and in skimming through, I HATED what I heard and said as much on the radio.  Now, of course, haven't digested almost the entire narrative of IOS's work, I am, as you said, "all in".  A lot of people say that IOS's releases are "too long" or "all over the place", and honestly this is artist is consistently doing all of the things I can't, but would if I could, in nearly everything I've heard by him. 

[Cranial Blast]

One band that comes to mind for me is the band Angelcorpse. When I first heard them it was at a time that I was so sick of anything that sounded remotely "death metal", but as time went on, I started to change my mind about them. I started to realize anything I liked riff wise in thrash was present in this form of death metal and not only that, but the riffs were like almost early proto black metal style too. Plus the vocals were very guttural, rather than the typical low belly gurgle type shit that you hear in a lot of death metal, but at the time was just like..ehh this sucks, not refining my senses enough to the overall arc of genius. I also at this time hated the band name, sounded like they copied Morbid Angel and mixed in Cannibal Corpse, not the case at all. This awakening caused me to say fuck bandnames after this, what's in a band name anyways? Opened my mind to the notion of leave no stone unturned from this day going forward and into oblivion, as you might miss something special!

[tiny_tove]

Taint's Woredom. When I got it it didn't get my attention and thought it couldn't be compared to previous amazing works. After a couople of years it became one of my favourite and still is. There is something in the sound and usage of samples that totally makes me feel like being on the scene.

[Cranial Blast]

Taint's Woredom. When I got it it didn't get my attention and thought it couldn't be compared to previous amazing works. After a couople of years it became one of my favourite and still is. There is something in the sound and usage of samples that totally makes me feel like being on the scene.

It's funny you mention that one as I kind of agree with you. I use to think Whoredom was like the least favorite of all Taint's work. I actually listened to that one again a couple weeks ago and I too also liked it better than I orginally remember it. The samples are quite great, a lot more than I first remember.

[Stipsi]

Not a realase in particular but a band:
Incapacitants.
When i first listened to them (I think my first Incapacitants record was default standard) i didn't get it.
My first thoughts were: they are just some random recordings casually put together without any logical sense.
I had to listen a lot of their records many times with attention to fully understand they are the essence of noise purity.

[Bloated Slutbag]

Where Incapacitants were an instant hit, Masonna, specifically Shinsen Na Clitoris, just didn't hit any notes at all. Just kept playing that thing though because...not sure, really. Woulda been rude not to. Then one day it occurred to me that I was very likely listening to the sounds of some nutbar going absolutely apeshit in the closed confines a shitter. Now here, here, was a project with style!

Whitehouse Great White Death just sounded incredibly weak on first several runs through, from the sounds through the vocal delivery through the general shithouse presentation. (Had other excellent Whitehouse, though, such as 150 Murderous Passions and the semi-official vinyl on Rectification Sociey...the one which concludes with goofy voice observing the tapes still running!. Class, all the way. I digress). So yeah, GWD sucked ass, except, of course, for one lovely little ditty dedicated to Chuck Traynor. Kept coming back to just that one, till the rest of the album clicked, mostly in the affixing-permanent-loopy-grin-to-face capacity but hey.

I recall as a fourteen year-old I avoided Sun Ra cause it felt like the chap was deliberately insulting my fourteen year-old intelligence, just making a mockery out of everything I held close and dear (I mean, let's face it. He was!). Till one day I happened upon on a full presentation of Space Is The Place, on cable TV, which just struck me as really quite...dense...dark...purrrrrfect. Fuck it you win Ra, get those robes on and insult away buddy boy!

Fushitsusha [snip] took multiple revisits over the years to come to full appreciation.

Can dig that. Took the repeated praises of Zeno Marx, over a decade-plus interval, to persuade me to get with the Fushitsusha, though funnily enough I was an instant Keiji Haino convert yeeears before that (via PSF-7).

Another in the Zeno-made-me-dig-it category: Merzbow/Heemann Sleeper Awakes... not to say I ever disliked it, just that it never really clicked as something particularly noteworthy among other Merz and/or Heemann/HNAS. Slept on it for ages, you could say, till one day I just sorta...awoke...at the edge of the abyss sorta thing.

Of related note, Yen Pox Blood Box, just seemed a bit bland after the rich tapestries posited in the early tape on Circle 9. One late night had an extremely unnerving nightmare-level experience whose nameless horrors eventually coalesced into a coherent realization that one of the tracks was skipping endlessly. So profound and upsetting was this interval of unnervement that the brain could from that point onward always find plenty of not-at-all-bland to comfortably submerge itself deep within, the mindsear drawn into abysses within abysses within...

[mag-maa]

Another in the Zeno-made-me-dig-it category: Merzbow/Heemann Sleeper Awakes... not to say I ever disliked it, just that it never really clicked as something particularly noteworthy among other Merz and/or Heemann/HNAS. Slept on it for ages, you could say, till one day I just sorta...awoke...at the edge of the abyss sorta thing.

This album is also in Heemann's Bandcamp with the text:

"Masami Akita sent me a cassette of raw material for a collaboration. When I had finally completed this album in 1992 and sent the recording to Masami he replied: "I apreciate your talent but this is your music, not mine"

It's surely difficult to find Masami's touch on this one.

[ConcreteMascara]

Various – Sweetness Will Overcome CD - when i first picked this up ages ago I could appreciate the most brutal harsh noise tracks and the IRM track, but i didn't appreciate the subtler, more textural approach of a lot of the material. MNEM, Ochu, and Irgun Z'wai Leumi are all favorites now, but early on the seemed like a lot of dicking around. IRM is still the highlight but these stand out so clearly now. Also that lounge track, so good!

Blod - Red Light Companion 3xLP - its funny to me now, but when i got this boxset on release i was originally pretty nonplussed. Two LPs of blasting with seemingly indiscriminate breaks to allegedly signify individual tracks? They must be taking the piss! The 3rd LP was more interesting and varied but still similar. Maybes it was/is Stockholm syndrome but at some point it started to make sense. The monolithic blasting gave yielded details and enjoyment well beyond what i first heard. It became a cypher that lead me to worship everything by Blod. But damn did i have to actively try to enjoy and understand at first!