Here are some metal bands I like...tell me some!

[arcturian]

band - their best album (imo) - link to good song by them (if available)
badass gothic/black metal
Abigail Williams - In the Shadow of a Thousand Suns - the departure (check out the song www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hEgh8AWETA )

famous progressive rock/metallers
Mastodon - Crack the Skye - Oblivion (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6WGNd8QR-U)

the best "viking" metal band. serious business.
Týr - Ragnarok - Wings of Time - www.youtube.com/watch?v=7gj6rQOqgAs (one of my favourite bands... they're singing in Faroese, by the way)

perhaps the greatest folk metal band, all real instruments.
Eluveitie - Slania - Inis Mona
www.youtube.com/watch?v=iijKLHCQw5o

completely insane technical death/grind metal from Czech republic
Lykathea Aflame - bringer of the elvenfris flame - a step closer
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dx8TP9UMX8

the greatest death n roll (rock n roll death metal?) band..they used to be grind
Carcass - heartwork - this is your life
www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq4FULunmTY

you have to know this band, the most assbeating metal. and it is canadian
3 inches of blood - advance & vanquish - deadly sinners

there's lots of nintendo metal, but check out this zelda 2 cover, few do it.
www.myspace.com/vomitron

really weird and catchy japanese metal/rock/pop?
sigh - imaginary sonicscapes - scarlet dream
www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9UpQsoIPqo

ripping japanese metal
abigail - intercourse and lust - attack with spell (mephistopheles is their best song but you can get it on youtube...)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6y99JgOg0KE

i'll stop now because who has time to listen to all this shit? NOBODY.
anyway, let's rock.

Let me know some cool metal bands any of you forum people like so we can all find good tunes we may never have known existed. I know I've listed some well-known/popular bands but some folks might be new to metal!

[arcturian]

man stop filling the boards with your crap, acturian, you are such crap.

[droidofages]

LOL. Don't take the delay in response as no interest Arcturian. I'm sure some of the open minded metal heads on the forum will check out the great links you've provided. Although I have an affection for early Metallica, most of my heavy listening I take part in is reserved for prog-like groups (see my Mars Volta post) and stoner metal (see my Sleep post), so the hair-band and straight-up-metal side of things have never been my cup of tea. Some speed metal, death metal and grind core can be interesting to listen to academically for me, but I don't really have any in my music collection.

[Chronic Insomnia]

I just never responded because my metal history is rather wimpy and cliche to say the least. I listened to Metallica (who didn't), Megadeth (again who didn't) and a lot of Faith No More (which really isn't metal).

As far as speed metal goes, or grind core metal or whatever, well I just can't get into it. After a certain speed it all sounds the same to me. I would say somewhere around 180bpm and higher, it's just noise to me. I am an old fart though, so it's not really the musics fault, it's more my fault. I can only listen to the snare drum being smashed at 200bpm for so long and then it's too much for me.

I am with Droid though, I LOVE me some Mars Volta. Especially the older original stuff. I find that Omar Rodriguez just churns out music now for the sake of showing off and a lot of it stinks. But De-Loused and Frances the Mute are some pretty intense and interesting albums. The dynamics which they work with are pretty incredible. I saw them live during the Frances the Mute time and they really sucked live, it was just too hard for them to play live, but I saw them more recently and they were much better.

Michael

[droidofages]

I'd love to see the Mars Volta live if they focused on the tight, prog-ish elements. They'd certainly have to do better than what I've heard on the live album.

I did get to see Tool in Ottawa though with (one of) Mike Patton's band(s) Tomahawk opening. Although I loved Faith No More's "Epic" and most of the following album, Tomahawk was less than stellar. Mike came out dressed as a border crossing guard though and had a rubber glove on with blood on the first two fingertips! Yikes! Maybe the band had some problems getting into Canada? Heh heh.



On the other hand, Tool was spectacular! Amazing musicianship and stage show. Incredible cross section of people in the audience too from metal heads to hippies, from kids to old farts (like me). Pretty cool fan base and one of my favourite concerts.





This is the actual concert I was at:

[Chronic Insomnia]

Oh I love Tool also. To me they are kind of like the opposite of Mars Volta, VERY simple music but yet SUPER dynamic. Tool is just as powerful as Mars Volta and I saw them a long time ago, back in the nineties, not really sure when, but it was like 1996 or so...and they were AWESOME. I agree with you totally that Mars Volta doesn't translate well to a live concert. There is just no way to pull off the complex music they have on their records. I should know, I have been in a band since 1992 and have played guitar since then also, and that kind of stuff just isn't really possible live. There are so many overdubs and overlapping guitars on those records that you couldn't possibly pick one single guitar part out of the whole thing. And as far as the drums go, well that guy, not sure what his name is, is ridiculous.

I guess the drummer might be able to pull it off though. I have seen some completely incredible drummers in concert actually. In about 1993 I saw Smashing Pumpkins live and I was so blown away by Jimmy Chamberlain that I almost forgot the TERRIBLE live vocals from Billy Corgan. Almost. It was a good show though. It was what it was.

Here's a link to one of my songs I did with my band last year. It's very toolish actually. The bass player in my band, Joe, came up with the bass line and I added to it with the guitar part, along with my cousin on drums. It's a live recording in the studio and I only overdubbed the second lead guitar, so it has many warts and we still haven't properly recorded it, because of the energy we managed to get with this recording. The song is called "Oblivious".

www.garageband.com/artist/thedayremains

Michael

[arcturian]

Thanks very much for the responses you guys. Of course I loved early Metallica, too. My first metal band other than black sabbath. Like most fans, I think, I stopped liking them as much by the time of load, i didn't even listen to reload, garage inc had some great stuff, I Disappear is a really bad, unfunny joke, I only heard st anger once but there was a cool nintendo sounding instrumental song on it someone showed me, and (coming full circle) I actually like a bunch of tunes on death magnetic somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if this counts as blasphemy but I have to hand it to them for actually sounding something like metallica/a decent metal band on several tracks.

re mars volta: it is probably about time i check these dudes out, ive had some good friends rant and rave about them (deloused etc) sometime ago but never got around to it. where to begin??

i have nothing against tool, they've got some cool riffs but I just am not sure I'd care to listen to a full album. many friends dig them!

chronic, your band's tune 'oblivious' isn't too shabby. nice tool-y riffage as you have said : )

droid, i think i really have to investigate sleep more seriously. dragonaut is excellent, i'm listening to it now. when i recommended Graveyard to you the other day i didn't know how right i was (hah). I think you will definitely dig this other very sabbath-y (but a little less stonerfuzzsludge) group from sweden. they travelle here from the 70s i swear.

i hate and have always hated hairbands, i hope they die (the ones that haven't died already).

I'm curious as to what you mean, droid, by your statement regarding your academic interests in more extreme forms of metal. i ask only because i, myself, have an academic interest in some types of metal. specifically, i have a proposed anthropology master's project on a particular area which takes metal music as a focal point.

chronic: i actually missed the megadeth train, mustaine's voice is grating, i think but i can overlook it if the song rocks hard enough (hangar 17 or whatever, kill the king, the disintegrators, the mechanics etc).

i would agree that 90% of grind is simply annoying trash. however, a few bands rise above the shit and forge some wicked stuff. take the quebecois band cryptopsy and their greatest album, none so vile.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1FivvPQIUY a link to their best song imo called 'phobophile'. if you don't like craziness, probably you shouldn't click this link. my above post, however, contains a song by lykathea aflame, possibly the only experimental grind band. they're not afraid to occasionally throw in some weirder and sometimes softer elements.

regarding death metal: the best death metal, in my opinion, is simply down-tuned rock and roll (complete with occasional groovines) but with growling/screaming. aside from the catchy and upbeat carcass song i linked above, i strongly recommend folks interested in groovy rock with a metal twist check out the amorphis album 'tales from the thousand lakes'. this finnish band delivers sort of folk-inspired catchy metal these days but they used to crank out some of the most accessible atmospheric rock-tinged metal ever. check out the song www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0VJSRe1wzI magic and mayhem. it is excellent and is a great example of what the rest of the album is like.

the tool concert sounds great! it is amazing whena band really delivers live.