The general Metal discussion thread

[Bear 1817]

Heeeellz yeah! Man, that looks amazing. I mean, those two concerts would probably have been worth every single penny you'd have to pay to witness it. Chist!

 

Also, Inferno is starting to look good. The line up so far:

 

BEHEMOTH

ENSLAVED

BLOODBATH

MY DYING BRIDE

SEPTICFLESH

1349

MORTUARY DRAPE

ANTICHRIST

SAGMAUR

 

I am especially happy to finally getting the chance to see Mortuary Drape. Faaaantastic band, and one of the most unique black metal bands of all time. Gonna see My Dying Bride and Slagmaur for sure too.

 

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Another new track from the upcoming Anaal Nathrakh album: http://www.decibelmagazine.com/featured/anaal-nathrakh/

 

Not bad!

[Bear 1817]

I'm surprised by the amount of death metal found in that song. I'm not impressed, but judging from that song they seem to have gone in a bit different direction this time around instead of doing the same they did on the last album. Good for them and their fans.

[Bear 1817]

Seeing Diskord and Infant Death tonight. Shouldbe fun. Diskord play ugly progressive death metal and Infant Death plaus ugly blacking thrash metal. Looking forward to see both. If Diskord's half as good as the last time I saw them it's gonna be good.

 

[Bear 1817]

Infant Death was cool, and the vocalist was happy as fuck as well as wearing the coolest mustache I've seen for a long time.

Diskord was fantastic. There's nothing for the eyes there, but they're god damn tight and it's impressive how three guys can make so much noise. Brutally great gig from these guys.

[Bear 1817]

 

Battlelore - ...Where the Shadows Lie

 

With fantastic coverart by known J. R. R. Tolkien'-ullustrator Ted Nasmith it's easy to understan what kind of themes this band deals with. ...Where the Shadows Lie is Battlelore's debut album, and a fantastic album in my eyes. It's hard to say exactly what genre Battleloe belongs in, but they play a mix of power metal and goth metal with hints of melodic death metal and folk metal, topping it with "beauty and the beast" vocals. Neither of the two vocalists are very talented, but they supply eachother very well and there's plenty of memorable vocal lines (such as the female vocals in Fangorn!) without ever going over top with anything, though the growls are a bit special and certainly not for everyone. They also managed to get their own soun and there's not really any bands out there sounding like this, and that's positive. I'm enjoying their lyrics as well (more or less always baese on something Tolkien) and it really fits the atmosphere of the music.

 

 

[Visutox 188]

Wow, didn't know this band. Just listened to this song and I really loved it, which is normal when you're a fan of Tolkien's world. Going to try their discography asap but especially that album, '...Where the Shadows Lie'. The female vocals amazed me on that track, and the growls sound pretty awesome to me. Concerning the track, nothing to say if just that it's amazing, I love the atmosphere there is in that song and the lyrics as well. Thanks for sharing, dude!

[Bear 1817]

Happy you liked it. I think the fist three albums are their best. Sword's Songs is a bit lighter and happier and Third Age of the Sun is a lot darker, but both are great IMO. Third Age of the Sun are usually regarded their worst, but I disagree. I think it is fantastic.

 

On Evernight they turned more towards a darker form for goth metal, and while good, it's not nearly as good as the three first. They also failed to create the same Tolkien-ish atmosphere on this. Which is a bit fun since this was the first where they did not directly refer to names and direct references to Tolkien's universe.

 

The Last Alliance is mroe of the same, and more or less the same quality wise.

 

With Doombound the reutrned to their roots. Less gothic influences and more epic, extreme metal, creating a Tolkien-ish atmosphere. Not as goo as their three first IMO, but a good album for sure.

[Bear 1817]

Full new At the Gates song

 

 

 

Yeah, well, it's ok, but that's it. Sounds a lot like a huge deal of the bands that started immitating ATG after SotS. 3/6. Not too impressed.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

Never really liked At the Gates, but checked out the song earlier today due to curiosity. Well... still sounds the same. xD

[Bear 1817]

Have you heard their earlier albums? They changed drastically with every album, but they always kept certain elements for the next one and kept building on those for the next album. Their two first albums are less melodic and filled with plenty of weird riffs. With Terminal Spirit Disease they got more melodic and more straight forward, but not without plenty of death metal to it, and with Slaughter of the Sound they kinda released an album that has become the trademark of what meodic death metal is today, and their weakest effort by far. It's very watered down with less death metal elements than their previous albums. I like it, but the three others are way better and also more unique.

 

 

But the two first are proper death metal that just happens to be very melodic as well. Completely different from Slaughter of the Soul, In Flames, Soilwork and whatnot. The death metal is in the focus on those albums.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

^ I think I've heard the first few albums but didn't really affect me in any way. It was okay for listening once but never again. Tho I usually don't really like melodic death metal in most of its forms anyway, save for some early In Flames and Soilwork now and then (I do like Soilwork's later work too, but that doesn't fall into this subgenre).

[Bear 1817]

Allright, fair enough. I'm not the biggest fan of meloic death metal myself, but I love a lot of the early bands within the genre, in the times before melodic death metal was synonymous with melodic extreme metal. The lack of death metal in melodic death metal is my main problem with the genre. Most bands fail to blend the melodic aspect of the music with the brutality and heaviness of death metal, and that's a problem.

 

Dissection's Reinkaos is recommended. Completely different from their earlier stuff, and much more in common with mid 90's In Flames, just a lot darker, yet catchy as fuck.

 

[Jigsaw9 6783]

It seems we both have the same problem with typical melo-death then. xD

 

Also, I've never listened to Dissection before but these tracks seem pretty fine! I was always under the impression they were black metal (or always read about them in this context) but I can kinda see/hear this "melodic extreme metal" you were going for.

[Bear 1817]

The first album is a melodic black metal album, the second is a mixture of melodic black and melodic death metal and the last one is a melodic death metal album. The two first are pure 6/6 albums in my eyes. Fantastic albums in every way possible.

 

 

Hypocrisy should also be mentioned. Abducted and The Final Chapter are both fantastic melodic death metal albums where they manage to mix death metal with melodies. Both are classics!

[Jigsaw9 6783]

I might check out Dissection then, thanks!

 

Also thanks for reminding me of Hypocrisy... last year I started checking them out more in-depth (I had only seen a couple videos before) and quite liked what I heard! Nothing fancy but all-around solid stuff with a captivating atmosphere. Then my interest kinda fizzled out but I might listen to more of their stuff soon as I'm on an extreme metal kick lately anyway.

[Bear 1817]

That's a good choice regarding both bands. I always thought Hypocrisy had a superb run from 92-97, releasing two fantastic death metal albums, one good, borderline melodic death metal album and two fantastic melodeath albums. The self-titled was a disappointment, but still a good album, and Into the Abyss is great. Contains one of their best songs (Fire in the Sky) as well as an insane vocal performance for Peter.

 

With Catch 22 they actually went in a more nu-metal inspired direction being specially inspired by Slipknot. Underrated album IMO. The production is weak and the songs ain't as good as on all the albums before, but it's cool IMO. The two first songs on the abum are amazing.

[Bear 1817]

New Bloodbath track: http://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news/2014-09-24/premiere-bloodbath-unite-in-pain-stream

 

Best they've done since Nightmares Made Flesh. At times it sounds very Swedish and gives off a Carnage and God Macabre feeling. Nick Holmes doesn't have much power in his growls anymore, but I'm really diggin' hearing him growling again. He sounds pretty damn awesome actually.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

The filthy occult Italian doomster ladies of SaturninE just released a new song from their upcoming album:

 

http://avantgardemusic.bandcamp.com/track/moloch

 

Sounds cool as ever so far.

[Bear 1817]

I'm not too happy about the bass drums. Stands out way too much IMO.

[Bear 1817]

Fullmoon - United Aryan Evil

 

As you've already guessed by the title, Fullmoon were a NS band. That might put you off, and that's understandable I guess, but if you, like me, are capable of looking past all lyrics and ideologies that deals with subjects you're not too fond of and/or despise, and just enjoy the music for what it is, then you've got yourself a black metal gem here, and one of the finest demos ever made by man.

 

In the early to mid 90's different countries had different sound, and you could more often than not hear if a band were Norwegian, Swedish, Greek, Polish, South-American or Finnish, and with Fullmoon being Polish they had a typical sound for the Polish scene at the time. Atmospheric, very epic, mystic and extremely unique, mostly mid-paced black metal with lots of focus on atmosphere, a huge battle-like atmosphere. It's not epic because it's filled with synthor anything, but because of the riffs itself, and of course Rob Darken's (Graveland) fantastic synth that works as a backdrop of the release. The synth itself never gets the main role on the album, it's just there as a backdrop to add to the atmosphere and it works really well.

 

The album has got a lot in common with other Polish albums such as Graveland's Carpathian Wolves and Thousand Swords, Veles' The Triumph of Pagan Beliefs and Night on the Bare Mountain and Infernum's ...Taur-Nu-Fuin..., all fantastic albums, but without just copying any of them. It just has that Polish sound that was common within the polish black metal scene at the time.

 

Look past the ideoligy here and you should be able to enjoy one of the best black metal releases of all time, you fail to do that and you miss out on something fantastic.

 

[Jigsaw9 6783]

New Bloodbath track: http://metalhammer.teamrock.com/news/2014-09-24/premiere-bloodbath-unite-in-pain-stream

 

Best they've done since Nightmares Made Flesh. At times it sounds very Swedish and gives off a Carnage and God Macabre feeling. Nick Holmes doesn't have much power in his growls anymore, but I'm really diggin' hearing him growling again. He sounds pretty damn awesome actually.

 

This has just made me wanna check out more of their stuff~ (already in the process of, ehm, "acquiring" xD)

[Bear 1817]

Go for their two first albums and first EP. I don't care for their second  EP and third album. They were huge meeeeh's IMO.

[Jigsaw9 6783]

^ Sure thing! I tend to go in a chronological order anyways... just spinning Breeding Death now, nice stuff.

 

On an unrelated note: started listening to Revocation (I got curious because they'll be opening for Cannibal Corpse in Nov.), and was surprised to find out how "death metally" their few new songs are from their upcoming album compared to the old stuff - which is more like technical thrash, with maybe a few melodic death influences. Anyway, pretty cool tunes, I'm curious now for that new album.

 

[Bear 1817]

Good boy!

 

Also, talking about Bloodbath - here's another recommendation:

 

Bloodbath - Toxic Death

 

No, this ain't a release by the Swedish death metallers, this is a thashing death metal release by a Serbian band from 1990. Boodbath plays raw, agressive death/thrash that sounds like a mixture of bands such as Merciless, Possessed, Necrovore and Morbid Saint. It's not original, not even for its time, but it's got plenty of character and it's a exhibition in brutality and agression. Do yourself a favour and check out this masterpiece!