Heavy Metal: A Head Banger's Discussion Thread

[Claire]

[FONT="Arial"]The only metal bands I've ever paid much attention to are Nightwish, whom I lost interest in a couple years ago after adoring them through the eighth grade, and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, who I am going to see in November and I'm SO EXCITED. TSO puts on pretty much the greatest live show ever and plays for over two hours. <3

I really like metalcore, though, or at least the bands I've heard that I've heard labeled as metalcore (how hard could it be to actually be metalcore, though?). [/FONT]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Trivium? I own their album The Crusade. For one, they are THE worst lyricists in existence XD for this I am glad, though, because I think it's hilariously amusing. As for their music... they sound like they really want to be good, but just can't manage to be. I'd say half the album if stuff I can't bring myself to listen to, and the other half is just okay. Detonation, Entrance of the Conflagration, and of course The Crusade are all decent. However, the other few songs I liked when I bought the album I am not so keen on.

Overall I bought the album the same day as I bought Oceanic, ad after about a week with both, I was only seriously listening to one of the albums I bought that day >_>[/COLOR]

[Panache]

So is Electric Wizard so terrible that when I mention it it's name is completely ignored?

[Goodbye, Face]

[font=arial][size=1]As intelligently as I can put this, I have listened to two Trivium albums, and I feel truly sorry for my friend and for anyone else who loves this band because they have a complete lack of good musical taste. Their music isn't interesting, it isn't passionate, and it isn't [i]good[/i]. Seriously, isn't there a better band than Trivium that people could be listening to?

I mean, I listen to some pretty bad music, but at least it's [i]interesting[/i].

EDIT: and sorry dude, I've never heard of Electric Wizard. I may check them out.

EDIT2: Revolver, how irrelevant can you possibly be? Every other post you make is full of complete disregard of context and sense.[/font][/size]

[Aberinkula]

[QUOTE]Seriously, isn't there a better band than Trivium that people could be listening to?[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="Olive"]Face the asnwer is "every other band."[/COLOR]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[quote name='Goodbye, Face'][font=arial][size=1]As intelligently as I can put this, I have listened to two Trivium albums, and I feel truly sorry for my friend and for anyone else who loves this band because they have a complete lack of good musical taste. Their music isn't interesting, it isn't passionate, and it isn't [i]good[/i]. Seriously, isn't there a better band than Trivium that people could be listening to?

I mean, I listen to some pretty bad music, but at least it's [i]interesting[/i].

EDIT: and sorry dude, I've never heard of Electric Wizard. I may check them out.

EDIT2: Revolver, how irrelevant can you possibly be? Every other post you make is full of complete disregard of context and sense.[/font][/size][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]I swear, I think he's high or something XD.

Anyway, I dug up my old review of the Trivium album. It's rather forgiving, and it's pretty old so forgive me if I sound a little n00bish.

Trivium - The Crusade

A lot of buzz began floating around Trivium at about the time of The Crusade?s release. Curious, I decided to see what all the fuss was about.

Trivium?s two earlier releases were a bit of an annoyance. They had the metal core sound popular among many bands these days with hideous screaming and mediocre musical quality, even compared to other metal core bands. The Crusade, though, has exploded their popularity.

Trivium sound a lot like Metallica back in the early days, when they were speed-metal and not crap-rock. They feature the classic sped-metal sound with gruff vocals and singing added at parts. Unfortunately, there?s nothing that really stands out about them,

Some songs on The Crusade, such as Detonation, Tread the Floods, and Becoming The Dragon feature their heaviest sound with quick, abrasive riffs and solos and a brutal, visceral sound. It is on these tracks that Trivium shines as a head-banging fun ride. Other tracks like Ignition and The Rising have a mixture of heavy parts and softer parts with singing vocals. There are even a couple of borderline ballads in This World Can?t Tear Us Apart and Sadness Will Sear.

The biggest problem with a lot of Trivium?s songs is that they are too dragged out without much purpose. Some may feature one too many chorus repetitions, or a really lame part that totally sucks you out of the experience. Still, there are many anthems and songs that will stick with you on this album. The best track is actually an 8-minute all-music song called The Crusade which features all four band members at their best, which still isn?t spectacular. The guitarists and drummer aren?t more than average grade, but the bassist is actually quite good. This isn?t well represented, though, as the guitars are turned way higher than the bass on most songs.

Another huge folly of The Crusade is the lyrics. Most of the songs feature a socio-political massage and the occasional detailing of a famous murder story, all of which I?m fine with. But wow, these are some terribly written songs. A strong example of this is the chorus to To the Rats which goes as such: ?Break every bone in your face/if you mess with my life/I?ll mess with your blood/bury you in a coffin made of your deception.? Singer Heafy?s voice is no prize either. Whether singing or yelling, he always sounds the same and, despite vocal coaching, is a terrible singer. He has the gruff sound commonly associated with this sort of band, but can?t pull it off very well, especially when he tries to vary his pitch. The album is very vocally oriented as well, which poses a major problem.

Is Trivium the best rising band on the market? No. Go listen to Dragonforce or Avenged Sevenfold for a similar sound portrayed in much better skill. Are they worth a try? They?re at least worth listening to the singles on you tube and seeing what you think.

OVERALL: 5.7 - Bad[/COLOR]

[Panache]

I have another question. If someone called Sludge Metal the bottom of the barrel metal wise would that be negative or positive? I mean the sludge is worst at the bottom of the barrel right?

Edit: Wow the art and imagery of Electric Wizard is awesome. They have stuff from like Legit Satan worship. Slayer wishes it was this cool. Although it's more based off of acid taking.

[Jakehammaren]

[quote name='Avenged666fold']Oh and I disagree with Groove Metal being the lowest on the spectrum. I think that would be death metal. I mean a whole genre with vocals that sound like static and a toilet flushing? Gimme a break. Unless that doesn't cout nas metal now...[/QUOTE]


You've obviously never heard a good death metal band (in other words, go listen to Amon Amarth and Unleashed and eat your words).

And it's funny that you should diss on it so vehemently immediately after making an "OMG IM SO XTREME FUR LISTENIN TO NAGLFAR" who is a black/death metal band in the first place.

Electric Wizard is the ****, however. I absolutely love the Dopethrone album. Plus they sing about H.P. Lovecraft's mythos, which makes them twice as awesome. Their genre, for anyone who cares, is Stoner Doom Metal. Stoner is probably my least favorite form of doom metal, but Electric Wizard is win. Speaking of doom metal, Candlemass, Swallow the Sun, and Mael Mordha are all amazing. I've been particularly into Swallow the Sun lately (it's really melancholic doom metal with a mix of death and clean vocals that boasts both beautiful, weeping melodies and skull-crushingly heavy riffs with atmospheric keyboards that actually add to the music instead of getting in the way like they usually do).

Revolver, don't bring up blatantly non-metal bands in the metal thread. You've done it twice in a row now. Cut it out.

And why are we wasting time talking about Trivium? Everyone by this point realizes that their banal and derivative metalcore ******** a) hardly qualifies as metal, and b) isn't worth anyone's time.

Speaking of huge wastes of time, lol @ DragonFarce. Why hasn't everyone picked up on the fact that they've released three albums of the same exact song? Watch this video, it backs up my claim very nicely (and hilariously):

[url]http://youtube.com/watch?v=MIleK5CRcjo[/url]

It also annoys me that every mallcore kid in the world listens to them and thinks they are power metal fans when they've never even heard of Rhapsody or Blind Guardian. DragonFarce is the only power metal band in the mallcore circuit, and there is an obvious explanation as to why - their music takes absolutely no thought at all to listen to. Screw DragonFarce - listen to real power metal.

[John]

[SIZE=3]INTERMISSION![/SIZE]

All the metal in the world that I listen to:
[LIST]
[*]The Sword's only album
[*]A little bit of Iron Savior (which, so far, I'm a little disappointed in, however much I like "Time Will Tell")
[*]Not as much Kamelot as I'd like (the more I listen to the smattering of songs that I have from them, the more I appreciate what they do to power metal)
[*]A solitary Melvins album, which in itself isn't metal through-and-through anyway.
[*]Soundgarden, if you feel like calling them alternative metal.
[*]Dethklok[/LIST]

[Metalcore501]

OK im not up to up to date on what the convo has been, but some metal bands I like include Gorgoroth, Behemoth, and graveworm.

[Aberinkula]

[QUOTE]Revolver, don't bring up blatantly [B][B]non-metal [/B][/B]bands in the metal thread. You've done it twice in a row now. Cut it out.[/QUOTe]

[COLOR="Olive"]Sorry, I've deleted my posts, so no more worry. Question though, we [B]can [/B]talk about aternatie metal can't we?

Dethklok is cosidered a novelty death metal band, And just for the record, Detklok is good. Birthday Dethday was a good, but too short song that I really enjoyed. And Dethacution was awesome. I got some if not most of the joke's from the show which is good. Als, the Acacia Strain? They are a good band. Just heard a song and they are good.

(Waitng for Jake to post about Agalloch.)[/COLOR]

[Goodbye, Face]

[font=arial][size=1]Thank you for going above and beyond, in a sense. I'll delete a pretty obvious post when I'm done typing this.

As far as I care, if it has metal anywhere in the title, we should be able to talk about it in context/contrast to real metal, which is basically what we have been doing. As long as we don't get too carried away with Alternative Metal, I see no reason to talk about it to some extent.

I'm glad new people are coming in and posting, if it's the same people posting over and over, it'll get stagnant. John listens to more metal than I thought!

And Jake, I beat you to that video like two or three pages ago, man. Check for it, it was in good timing.

I'm kind of done with this thread for the night, I just wanted to acknowledge things.[/font][/size]

[Jakehammaren]

[quote name='Goodbye, Face'][font=arial][size=1]Thank you for going above and beyond, in a sense. I'll delete a pretty obvious post when I'm done typing this.

As far as I care, if it has metal anywhere in the title, we should be able to talk about it in context/contrast to real metal, which is basically what we have been doing. As long as we don't get too carried away with Alternative Metal, I see no reason to talk about it to some extent.

I'm glad new people are coming in and posting, if it's the same people posting over and over, it'll get stagnant. John listens to more metal than I thought!

And Jake, I beat you to that video like two or three pages ago, man. Check for it, it was in good timing.

I'm kind of done with this thread for the night, I just wanted to acknowledge things.[/font][/size][/QUOTE]

As I said, it's hard to keep up with this thread. I'm kind of worried about going back and checking some of the previous posts, as I'm sure the ignorance of some posters would make my head explode.

And no, Revolver, "alternative metal" isn't a genre. Neither Avenged Sevenfold or that other band you mentioned are remotely metal at all. "Alternative metal" is usually just another word for "mallcore". Soundgarden is grunge, by the way, though they traces of stoner metal early on in their career, so they could've counted as one point. But stop this "alternative metal" crap. It doesn't exist.

And [B]Avenged666Fold[/B], Electric Wizard is NOT sludge metal. AT ALL. It's stoner doom. In fact, they're one of the stalwarts of the entire stoner doom genre. So they are a "faggy" ([I]real[/I] sophisticated) doom metal band after all. Do you have any idea what sludge metal even is? And have you even ever [I]heard[/I] doom metal to begin with? All signs point to no on both accounts. Candlemass = Doom Metal. Mouth of the Architect = Sludge Metal. Go figure it out now before you keep being wrong.

[Justin]

The reason I brought up Trivium(and, as I predicted, Dragonforce came from that) was because of their attempt at real metal with The Crusade. Amongst thrash albums, it is ****. Just like Inhuman Rampage is insulting to the power metal genre.

Trivium, in their own small way, inspired me. It made me say to say myself "Self, one day, I'm gonna do that. But for real."

It makes me wonder what can succeed in the modern day. As previously mentioned, this isn't the 80s anymore. Anyone who listens to a local rock stations has heard some vague attempt at pseudo-extreme vocals. One barrier partially down. The way I see it, all it'll take is Dragonforce to break out with a radio hit(and I don't think that's far off) and then the barrier of speed and technical prowess will be down.

So, what then?

And, hypothetically, if some vague form of extreme metal were to gain some real commercial success, where then does extreme metal go? It's in the nature of the core metal community to forsake pop culture. We simply do not get along.

I asked my friend that question one day. He answered simply, "Grind." I hope not. I hate grindcore. I respect everything it descends from. I even respect it, from a technical respect. But that's just not my thing.

My thought is it has to go somewhere. And, of course, most things never will get further than a short major record deal. Bands like Sletchvalk will never be on MTV. But regardless of hypothetics, where are the frontiers of metal going to go next?

Folk music is one avenue a lot bands explore that I enjoy. But many would argue that when metal mixes with lighter musical forms, it loses its metalness. I think that's ignorant. If you want references, Black Sabbath used harmonicas and flutes from time to time. And that's pretty much the base of the metal tree. Eh...but what do I know?

-Justin

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]I don't give a **** what anyone says about [B]Dragonforce[/B], I ****ing love Dragonforce. My brother is an obsessed fan, and I've loved them ever since first seeing them at Ozzfest.

Their songs are NOT all te same. Not even close. Anyone who's listened to Valley of the Damned with even the smallest amount of intent can tell you about the album's variety. I haven't really listened to Sonic Firestorm myself very much because that album has no soul, I agree. But then we ave Inhuman Rampage which is entirely different from the other two albums - mind you, IR is mostly similar to itself, but there's still enough variety to it.

I don't have time to get into that right now, because I have to get to school soon, but anyway having really, really studied their music I cannot say to many bad things about them. [/COLOR]

[Aberinkula]

[COLOR="Olive"]When jake was talking about better power metal than Dragonforce, he mentioned Rhapsody, Heard them today on Yahoo music, and they are great. I had heard Dawn of Victory, and it was amazing. I didn't have enough time at the school's library, but I wanted to listen to the Magic of the Wizard's Dream. I went later that day, but I totally forgot about them. But you bet your *** I'll check back later.

[QUOTE]But many would argue that when metal mixes with lighter musical forms, it loses its metalness.[/QUOTE]

I don't really think it matters if a band gets light at one point. In fact, when a band goes down a notch on volume and screaming and the heavy riff playing, they can end up with a good song. Plus fi tehre is a really heavy song after it, the effect is better becasue the transition from soft to hard ge's more surprising. That's how I feel anyways.

BTW, I'm doing some research on the genre's now. I should get some info before going on about a band that isn't really metal.[/COLOR]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Okay. I've listened to 4 songs by [B]Rhapsody[/B] so far (I won't judge their videos. Since they are unbearably god-awful.) The first one I heard was really good, (something about Dragonfire in the title) and it gave me high hopes, but I felt kind of let down by the rest of it. Holy Thunderforce was okay, Unholy Warcry was pretty cool, but the other one was just lame (the one with the video with tons of tits in it). Overall, I'd say they are not bad, but their music is so cheesy it's painful, which is a good thing in some places and bad in others. I think I might have fun listening to them, but I wouldn't ever become a fan.

After listening to all that, I listened to Black Winter Night by Dragonforce (my bros favorite) and it blew all those songs away, so :p.[/COLOR]

[Panache]

[QUOTE]And Avenged666Fold, Electric Wizard is NOT sludge metal. AT ALL. It's stoner doom. In fact, they're one of the stalwarts of the entire stoner doom genre. So they are a "faggy" (real sophisticated) doom metal band after all. Do you have any idea what sludge metal even is? And have you even ever heard doom metal to begin with? All signs point to no on both accounts. Candlemass = Doom Metal. Mouth of the Architect = Sludge Metal. Go figure it out now before you keep being wrong.[/QUOTE]I would be angry buuut your name is pretentious music snob so that would be idiotic. There is nothing wrong with being wrong. And all these ******** sub genres don't mean **** anyway. Calm down bud.

[Claire]

[quote name='2007DigitalBoy'][COLOR="DarkOrange"]Unholy Warcry[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[FONT="Arial"]I cannot even think about that song without laughing. My friend and I heard it back in eighth grade when we were both obsessed with Nightwish (she also liked Cradle of Filth back then, but she is pretty much the polar opposite now) and even then we joked about it.

I should sing it tomorrow just to make us laugh. xD[/FONT]

[Justin]

I can't imagine you seing Raphsody as cheesier than Dragonforce. They have Mario sounds written into their music. That just ain't right.

I think Avenged should probably leave this discussion alone. Being that it is for metalheads( and you are self-admittedly not one), and here you are getting ill with people who understand the thing better than you...I think you should probably take a hike before you work yourself into a fit.

I'd still really like to know where everyone pictures the metal underground heading in the future. This is a subject that greatly interests me.

-Justin

*EDIT*

I just caught the comment about the Acacia Strain. My opinion of them is two-fold:

They are not metal. Not at all.

However, they are interesting in that they are essentially a hardcore band in the vein of Bury Your Dead...but they do appear to actually know something about tone. Strange, you say? Indeed...I'm pretty sure that their tone is the source of their sudden popularity.

-Justin

[Aberinkula]

[QUOTE]They are not metal. Not at all. [/QUOTE]
[COLOR="Olive"]The Acacia Strain is metal. Heard them on an all metal music channel. Nothing but hardcore metal. [B]XM Liquid Metal XL was the nam[/B] Good channel btw. Good for new commers of the genre. Which is better than MTV2 and Fuse, but no vids. >_>[/COLOR]

[Nomurah!]

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="HotPink"]Other than Trivium...Which, let's put it like this..are good at what they do...to fans. But otherwise, not to people that belong in this thread. I hate their guts too. :]

Now let's talk about a different sub-genre or whatever or metal. Or one band in particular. [/COLOR][/SIZE]

[SIZE="4"]Wecamewithbrokenteeth[/SIZE].

[SIZE="1"][COLOR="HotPink"]Wow. This stuff is crazy. I've heard alot of stuff in genres that sound anything near what this band has created...Industrial..Power Metal.. Death Metal..Metalcore... But, I can't really put my finger on what they're type of music is. You guys will probably hate them, or most likely not even try to listen to their music.. but crap.

I take everything I said back about drummers. The drummer from WCWBT is the fastest drummer I've ever heard. Crazzzyyyy fast. And If I'm hearing right, on a electric set, with that. But they've changed their lineup, and I'm not sure who is drumming now, so yeah. I think now, they have drum sequencers playing,

Heck, they probably had sequencers up the whole time I don't knwo anybody who could drum that fast...but...but... how exactly do you program one to be awesome like that? Never had one.

The axes are okay, while they have their moments in songs, they're very distortioned and deep, and go from metal riff to metal riff, and thank God, none of that metalcore bridged crap.

Vocals are killer. Dual vocals. Very low. and then kind of high. The vocals seem distant. The vocals are still killer. Who knows what the crap they're yelling about? Doesn't matter. I just grunt along with them...most of it's "Ooooooo WEEEEEE"

And then..you have the synth, and...well. Techno.

Techno and hiphop breakdowns sometimes.

their songs are really short...I have 16 of them, and that adds up to about twenty minutes, but I'm satisfied. I don't know about their newer stuff on Myspace, but you guys should download them off of limewire or something.

This stuff is freaking crazy robotic evil.[/COLOR][/SIZE]


[url]http://www.myspace.com/wcwbtmetal[/url]

[2010DigitalBoy]

[COLOR="DarkOrange"]Two words Mann: ****ing amazing. Though I gotta say, calling those vocals is an insult to vocals in general XD it's just "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" for ungodly stretched of time XD wait, that's A CHICK?! OH MY GOD!!! That doesn't seem physically possible!

Anyway despite the bowel movements being passed off as vocals, the music is amazing. The distorted guitars are a bit off-put in some song where they're so quiet, but that positively inhuman drumming makes up for it. Random hiphop beats = WTF. [/COLOR]

[Billy Shears]

[quote name='Whoa, Mann']
[SIZE="4"]Wecamewithbrokenteeth[/SIZE].

[/QUOTE]

[COLOR="DarkRed"][SIZE="1"]I told myself I would never, ever touch this thread, but goddammit, stuff like this bothers me.

[B]Wecamewithbrokenteeth[/B] is grindcore at its best, which is basically its worst. So they have no place in this thread.

Revolver, you keep posting in threads. Why?

[QUOTE][COLOR="Olive"]The Acacia Strain is metal. Heard them on an all metal music channel. Nothing but hardcore metal. XM Liquid Metal XL was the nam Good channel btw. Good for new commers of the genre. Which is better than MTV2 and Fuse, but no vids. >_>[/COLOR][/QUOTE]

Oh man, they were on the "METAL CHANNEL", toaderly makes them metaaaahl.

[B]WRONG[/B].

And stop calling hip-hop the downfall of music. There is good hip-hop out there, and it doesn't sound like the stuff on the radio. Show some respect to those who are actually making quality music out there, and also some respect to Jake, since he does nothing but pwn you all the time about metal when you clearly know nothing.

Goodbye, Face has a ton more respect showing love to [B]Soundgarden[/B]. Chyeah.

I don't listen to too much metal. Its mostly reserved for stuff like [B]Mastodon[/B] or early [B]Metallica[/B]. [B]High on Fire [/B]is enjoyable as well, and even though Jake might call me out on it, [B]Converge[/B]. [I]Jane Doe [/I]kills so much.

And **** all who don't agree, but [B]Russian Circles [/B]brings the metal.[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Nomurah!]

[quote name='2007DigitalBoy'][COLOR="DarkOrange"]Two words Mann: ****ing amazing. Though I gotta say, calling those vocals is an insult to vocals in general XD it's just "EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE" "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU" for ungodly stretched of time XD wait, that's A CHICK?! OH MY GOD!!! That doesn't seem physically possible!

Anyway despite the bowel movements being passed off as vocals, the music is amazing. The distorted guitars are a bit off-put in some song where they're so quiet, but that positively inhuman drumming makes up for it. Random hiphop beats = WTF. [/COLOR][/QUOTE]

[COLOR="HotPink"][SIZE="1"]Yeah, man. Those vocals have some special name...gutter..something. Comes from your gut. :D The drums are like...Yeah. YEAH. YES! And then...the techno bits are bit...off, but it's all good. Glad you like it.

And I'm sure the band gets tired of being called Grindcore. They have other elements, too. :] For the most part, I think they would belong in this thread. After all, they're not the kind of music that those metal-underlings listen to.. such as the Punk side of things, but then again, I suppose you know more about music than me, so I'll agree with you, I guess.[/SIZE][/COLOR]