Metal

[AFK]

Blech, I heard "Unforgiven III" today in the car. 

Blech!

[Iason Ouabache]

yes, I don't even like Metallica really, but I'll download it illegally because it'll piss off Metallica.

This would be a pretty funny jake, actually.

The number of torrent seeds for Metallica's discography on Mininova is always over 500. 

[Eve]

Blech, I heard "Unforgiven III" today in the car. 

Blech!

I was hoping you were maybe being overly critical, but having just listened to it.. not awful, but very meh. 

[AFK]

In fairness, I probably am a little over-critical.  It's just hard to reconcile current Metallica with Ride the Lighting/Master of Puppets Metallica.  And of course that was my formitive years so I'm probably overly attached to that part of Metallican history. 

Also, part of my overly-critical attitude towards Metallica has to do with how many other good metal bands followed their lead when they softened and stripped down their sound.  After the Black album came out so many bands latched onto their coattails. 

Megadeth, went from the awesomeness of Rest in Peace to the steamy pile of poo that was Countdown to Extinction
Testament offered up the highly uninspiring The Ritual

Then you had bands that wouldn't even hide it.  Example, Overkill and the I Hear Black album. 

So many awesome bands that I liked at the time wimping out.  Blech!
[/rant]

[Eve]

Aw, I didn't mean to criticize you, RWHN. I agree that it's hard to reconcile newer Metallica with RtL/MoP, like you said. I'm trying to be all open minded with it (somehow made sense because I stopped listening to Metallica for a while?) but I'm still not terribly impressed.

[AFK]

Oh, I know you weren't criticising me.  Just wanted to vent. 

[East Coast Hustle]

In fairness, I probably am a little over-critical.  It's just hard to reconcile current Metallica with Ride the Lighting/Master of Puppets Metallica.  And of course that was my formitive years so I'm probably overly attached to that part of Metallican history. 

Also, part of my overly-critical attitude towards Metallica has to do with how many other good metal bands followed their lead when they softened and stripped down their sound.  After the Black album came out so many bands latched onto their coattails. 

Megadeth, went from the awesomeness of Rest in Peace to the steamy pile of poo that was Countdown to Extinction
Testament offered up the highly uninspiring The Ritual

Then you had bands that wouldn't even hide it.  Example, Overkill and the I Hear Black album. 

So many awesome bands that I liked at the time wimping out.  Blech!
[/rant]

this.

all of this.



however, I viewed "Youthanasia" as Megadeth's bitching out point. Countdown wasn't Rust in Piece, but it didn't totally suck either. But singing in french? in my metal?

also, from there, the symmetry deepens, as both bands then put out albums that were slight improvements (Load was better than the black album, Cryptic Writings was halfway decent and WAY better than youthanasia) before both bands just utterly went to shit.

also also, most of Metallica's best riffs were Mustaine's riffs (4 Horsemen) or direct derivations of Mustaine's riffs (while call of Ctulu came out years before Hangar 18, the arpeggiated d-chord riffs in both songs are the same and does anyone really think Hetfield thought that up?)

[AFK]

An interesting new band.  (well new to me anyway)

From Denmark:  Volbeat -- The Human Instrument

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOTGcBon7hE

They've got a very interesting sound. 

[AFK]

So, the nominees for the 09 Grammy's are out.  They continue to be COMPLETELY out of touch.  In fact, it seems like they are so out of touch, they just gave their nomination ballots to their teenagers, here are the nominees:

Slipknot - Psychosocial
Nostradamus - Judas Priest
Under My Thumb - Ministry
My Apocalypse - Metallica

and the coup de grace

Heroes of Our Time - Dragonforce

I think the Ministry song is the only really good song of the bunch, I'm not sure I would call them metal though.

I think it borders on criminal that Testament didn't get a nod, or Death Angel.  A couple of old-school trad thrash bands that released great albums in 08.  Never mind some more extreme bands like Dismember, Unleashed, Amorphis, Entobmed, all of whom released some pretty excellent albums as well.  But the Grammy's won't touch extreme metal. 

I get the feeling that after the Jethro Tull incident, the Grammy's feel compelled to put Metallica on the list every year they release an album, whether it is decent or not.  My guess is they will win, though, I'd like to see Judas Priest get it. I mean, "Nostradamus" is a rather over-wrought and cliched track, but I think they are overdue for some cred from the industry. 

[OPTIMUS PINECONE]

     ALL of Metallica ought to have died in that bus crash. Or at least the zombie of Cliff Burton needs to come eat the remaining members. Because Metallica has sucked ASS for way too long.

     Even if the new Priest Lp is rather wanky, Rob Halford IS METAL.

     All those other bands suck.

     IRONWOOD is the only metal band worth paying attention to right now

     

[AFK]

Iron who?

Nah, there are tons of great bands deserving of a little more cred.

The aforementioned resurgence of old school bands like Testament, Death Angel, Possessed, and Cynic.

Napalm Death are still bringing it. 

The folk metal scene is chock full of great bands, Eluveitie, Korpiklaani, Turisas.

2008 has been a very metal year, too bad the Grammy's can't look beyond the mainstream metal. 

[Cain]

too bad the Grammy's can't look beyond the mainstream

Fixed.

[LMNO]

Yeah.  I'm of the opinion that most transgressive genres should never be recognized by the Grammys.

It's kind of like a death knell, you know?

[AFK]

Xmas brought me 3 exciting new (to me) titles to my metal collection.  Here I offer brief reviews to anyone who might be interested. 

Moonsorrow - V - Havitetty (in English:  5 - Ravaged)

Moonsorrow are an impressive metal band from Finland.  (which seems to be where most of the impressive metal bands come from)  Their style is a blend of black, viking, and folk metal.  Actually, this is the first CD I've bought from this band's discography, this one being released in 2006.  It runs 56 minutes and is comprised of two songs.  One 30 minutes the short ditty being a scant 26 minutes in duration.  The cover art looks like a snapshot from deep within Mordor and the music suits that imagery.  It's like you're taking this stroll through the black, yet fiery mountains.  Each song slowly builds from muted tapestries of waltzy metal guitar lines into flashes of fury.  The vocals are of the harsher variety.  Again, using LOTR terminology, imagine what the Ringwraiths would've sounded like if they were in a metal band.  That's pretty much what you get.  During some of the lulls there are passages of folk-inspired music complete with mandolins, accordion, and yes, even mouth harp.  It's a very impressive album and my favorite of the 3 I think.

Primordial - To The Nameless Dead

Primordial are a band from Ireland.  Like Moonsorrow, they employ elements of black metal and folk metal.  Only, with the folk metal they rely on the song structures of folk metal, not necessarily the instrumentation as there are no folk instruments to be heard from on this album.  Most songs are in a 3/4 time signature, though I'm pretty sure I heard a 5/4 in one of the songs.  Anyhoo, in a way, this band kinda reminds me of Tool.  Did I lose you?  What I mean is they have that same meandering, undulating kinda feel to them that a typical Tool song has.  The vocalist has the same kind of presence in his vocal appraoch that Maynard has.  It's just, it sounds like Maynard gargled some glass before he started "singing".  Lyrically, the theme in the songs has a lot to do with the fall of empires and nations.  In fact the first song is called "Empire Falls".  Another "As Rome Burns".  The band describes the spirit of the album being akin to a band of warriors about to face certain doom at the hands of an overwhelming force of tyrants, yet, they are ready to make that end one that will be of rememberance.  Determination in the face of certain death. 

Eluveitie - Slania

I can't thank Dr. Loki enough for turning me onto this band.  A band from Switzerland that plays an impressive form of folk metal that combines equal parts Celtic music and melodic death metal.  It's like if At The Gates sat down to have a jam session with an Irish pub house band.  They are an 8 member strong band complete with a violinist, hurdy gurdyist, and a couple of mad pipers, one being the inspirational leader of the band Chrigel.  Ian Anderson doesn't have anything on this guy.  What's great about this band is that a lot of the folk metal bands can be downright cartoonish in how they employ the folk elements in their music.  Kinda like they're Spinal Tap versions of Jethro Tull.  But Eluveitie take as much time to craft the folk arrangements as they do the death metal arrangements.  And they don't overdo it either.  You will get a nice intro of dueling melodic death metal riffage and gaita (a kind of bagpipe), but then it gives way to a meaty riff as the vocals kick in. 

Anyway, I like Slania but not quite as much as their previous album Spirit.  The songs, I feel, aren't as varied as they were on Spirit.  That is there are 3 or 4 that you probably wouldn't remember the name of if you weren't looking at the sleeve.  On Spirit each song had a definite signature.  Slania is a good album, mind you, just not as special. 

I'm sure you can find YouTube videos of all of these bands if you want to hear what they sound like and they all have MySpace pages with songs to listen to as well. 

[PeregrineBF]

TL;DR thread, will do later, will add descriptions later but I cut my finger,  so typing hurts...

Mostly Symphonic metal.

Aesma Daeva                       
After Forever                     
AINA                             
Amaran                           
Artosis                           
Avirgus                           
Dreams of Sanity                 
Elis                                                       
Epica (Great singer)
Fairyland
Haggard (Rather medeval)
Lacuna Coil
Leave's Eyes (Good singer)
led zepplin (Can't leave them out)
Lunatica
Magica
Nemesea
Nightwish (One of the first Symphonic metal bands, ok)
Peccatum
Rain Fell Within
Sirenia (Bastards keep changing singers every album. 9 destinies and a downfall was good)
Sylver Myst
Theatre of Tragedy
Therion (Pretty much the first Symphonic Metal. Excellent.)
Trail of Tears
Trans Siberian Orchestra (Metal Christmas/Beethoven. Very well done.)
Tristania
Tyr (They like vikings. Awesome band.)
Visions of Atlantis
Within Temptation