Heavy Metal and subgenre description

[Gary Floyd]

It's also Doom season for me, too, so expect me to gush about Electric Wizard an awful lot the next couple of weeks.

I was listening to Come My Fanatics and Witchcult Today yesterday. Both are great, though not as mind blowing as Dopethrone.

 

If we're talking seasonal choices as far as metal goes, then I listen to a lot of Doom Metal and some Black Metal (Immortal's At the Heart of Winter and Emperor's In the Nightside Eclipse are especially great this time of year, as is Mayhem's De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas-that's probably the only thing with Varg Vikerns I can listen to though.) Spring and Summer's a lot of Death Metal and Thrash Metal.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

I really really like Come My Fanatics. That sample that kicks off the second song..

 

"You're all the same, the lot of you, with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex, every sort of filth....and you hate the police, doncha?"

"You make it easy."

 

Plus that run of Doom-Mantia to Ivixor-B/Phase Inducer. That's a 20 minute space-out if there ever was one.

[Slayer]

It's also also doom season for me, although you and I differ on our doom tastes, with you preferring more of the Sabbath stoner doom and me enjoying more of the Gothic doom

[Gary Floyd]

I've been meaning to give My Dying Bride a shot. I do love Katatonia though.

 

 

[Slayer]

I tried to get into Katatonia a couple years ago with... I think it was Viva Emptiness, and just couldn't get into it. A couple months ago I saw they released a live album and decided to pick it up and really enjoyed it this time, so now I need to go back and pick up more of their albums.

 

As for MDB, start off with Angel and the Dark River or Light at the End of the World. You can also check out November's Doom and Swallow the Sun for similar styled goth metal.

[Gary Floyd]

I tried to get into Katatonia a couple years ago with... I think it was Viva Emptiness, and just couldn't get into it. A couple months ago I saw they released a live album and decided to pick it up and really enjoyed it this time, so now I need to go back and pick up more of their albums.

 

As for MDB, start off with Angel and the Dark River or Light at the End of the World. You can also check out November's Doom and Swallow the Sun for similar styled goth metal.

Last Fair Deal Gone Down and The Great Cold Distance are better albums IMO. Dance of December Souls and Brave Murder Day are more traditional Gothic Doom, so you might like those.

 

"You're all the same, the lot of you, with your long hair and faggot clothes. Drugs, sex, every sort of filth....and you hate the police, doncha?"

"You make it easy."

That's from "The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue." Electric Wizard pick the best horror movies to sample.

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

And Conan the Barbarian.

 

"...The WIZAAAAAAD"

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

 

I feel it's very important that everyone watch this.

[Gary Floyd]

And Conan the Barbarian.

 

"...The WIZAAAAAAD"

Speaking of Conan, you should check out Gate's of Slumber's Conqueror, which has something of a Conan-esque theme going for it. Plus, it has this as an album cover:

[Slayer]

The first couple of times I heard silly death metal covers of pop tunes, I found it vaguely amusing (I even toyed with the idea myself earlier this decade), but now that it's actually been executed, I realize how bad an idea it is. While I do like these bands showing they're not too serious (though I prefer the more unconventional humor of a Devin Townsend), unfortunately then it just feels like a stupid competition to see who can do the most unlikely cover

[Nighthawk]

I totally agree with that. I hate them for the same reason I hate singer/songwriter covers of gangsta rap. It's disrespectful.

[Copper Feel]

death metal covers of pop tunes

 

It's far funnier the other way around.

 

What's a good doom album to introduce someone who knows nothing of doom-metal to the genre?

[Nighthawk]

As you can see these guys discussing, there's different types, but you should probably get one of those Electric Wizard albums, or, I don't know, something by Sunn O))).

 

You know what else? Eyehategod. Sludgy filth doom, that is.

[Slayer]

I made Paradise Lost recommendations to Hoss By Gawd a couple of pages ago

 

...never did hear back from him

[Gary Floyd]

I made Paradise Lost recommendations to Hoss By Gawd a couple of pages ago

 

...never did hear back from him

 

I've heard three albums from them: Icon, Draconian Times, and In Reqiuem. I know you said they vary, but I liked Icon and DC more than IR.

 

I really like Amorphis, especially Tales From a Thousand Lakes, Elegy, and Tuonela. Their new album (Silent Waters) didn't do it for me though.

[Slayer]

I like those early albums as well, but I think the singer change was the best thing to rejuvenate the band. Silent Waters is definitely on my top five for the decade and gets regular rotation on my iPod

 

As for PL, IR was a good CD, but as far as their material this decade, the self-titled from '05 blows it away IMO.

[Corey_Lazarus]

Closest I can come to doom is the slower Acid Bath songs, Type O Negative, early Theatre of Tragedy, Sentenced, and late Moonspell. The holiday season doesn't really make me change my music, honestly. I'm still mostly about The Crown and God Dethroned at the moment, but I'm sure that'll pass when I find a new thrash band to blow my load over.

 

But before I go, everybody should check out the greatest black metal song/video in history.

[Gary Floyd]

I like those early albums as well, but I think the singer change was the best thing to rejuvenate the band. Silent Waters is definitely on my top five for the decade and gets regular rotation on my iPod

 

As for PL, IR was a good CD, but as far as their material this decade, the self-titled from '05 blows it away IMO.

Gothic is pretty good stuff too.

 

So, what's the consensus on Anathema?

 

Oh, and the new Cynic album, Traced in Air dropped Tuesday.

[Slayer]

I don't know about the consensus opinion, but I'm not as big a fan of them as the other two from the big three English doom bands. I like their work up to and (somewhat) including Judgement, but after that they switched to a style that I just can't get into. That seemed to happen to a fair number of European goth bands in the late 90's/early this decade, most notably bands like The Gathering, Theater of Tragedy and Tiamat, though at least in recent years the latter two have released albums I enjoyed which were a good mix of metal and experimentation.

[haws bah gawd]

I made Paradise Lost recommendations to Hoss By Gawd a couple of pages ago

 

...never did hear back from him

 

I've heard three albums from them: Icon, Draconian Times, and In Reqiuem. I know you said they vary, but I liked Icon and DC more than IR.

 

I really like Amorphis, especially Tales From a Thousand Lakes, Elegy, and Tuonela. Their new album (Silent Waters) didn't do it for me though.

 

Hey, sorry for not replying sooner. I still haven't gotten around to checking out any of their other stuff, but I haven't forgotten.

[NoCalMike]

Would you say "Black No. 1" by Type O Negative is a good example of Doom Metal?

 

And didn't Tori Amos do a cover of Slayer's Raining Blood?

[Guest Agent of Oblivion]

1. Not even close.

2. Yes.

[Corey_Lazarus]

Re: Amos doing "Raining Blood"

Allegedly, and I can't remember if I read this in an interview with her or in a magazine article either in Metal Edge or Pit or whatever back when she did it, but the reason she chose that was because she felt so strongly about the abuse and treatment of women in the Middle East that she wanted a giant vagina to open up in the sky and rain menstrual blood all over that area of the world.

 

...I'm guessing she missed the point of the song...

[Coffin Surfer]

The exact quote:

 

"When Justin Meldal-Johnsen [of Ima Robot, a long-time Tori collaborator] first played it for me, I thought about this giant vagina raining all over the Taliban, and I thought it that was pretty hardcore. This was before the Twins went down in New York in September of that year, and there were dreams of bloody vaginas all over the place. I really like Slayer. They sent me a T-shirt: ‘God Hates Us All’"

 

I wouldn't say she missed the point of the song, she was just saying that was the image that came to her. It is actually one of the album's better moments, not as loud as Slayer's but equally menacing and effective.

[Gary Floyd]

Alright, which is better: Carcass' Heartwork or At The Gates' Slaughter Of The Soul? I can't decide at the moment. Help a man out.

[EL BRUJ0]

I'd give the headbang to Carcass. That opening track is one of my favorite metal songs.

[Corey_Lazarus]

Slaughter because it wasn't a complete departure from their earlier work.

[Gary Floyd]

At this point, I think I just like them equally.

 

Anyways, it's more Melodic Black metal than Melodic Death Metal, but Sacramentum's Far Away From the Sun is pretty good stuff.

[JJ Johnson]

Heartwork, because they're both classics, but SotS has become The Metalcore Songwriting Bible. Lost? Generic? Steal something from At The Gates! But not their good stuff, like The Red In The Sky Is Ours or Terminal Spirit Disease, just jack the verse riff from "Suicide Nation". Heartwork, on the other hand, is practically untouched by shitty bands, excluding Arch Enemy. And shit, Michael Amott helped write Heartwork, so of course they're going to be fairly similar.

[Gary Floyd]

You know what else? Eyehategod. Sludgy filth doom, that is.

Take as Needed for Pain and Dopesick are pretty great albums.

 

Also, it may not be metal, but I listened to Anathema's A Natural Disaster yesterday and liked it a lot more than I thought I would.

 

Anyways, back to album competition/opinions: In The Nightside Eclipse or Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk: which is better? I Prefer Nightside myself.