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Atrophy - Socialized Hate

Antheraea - The Failure I Am, Ontario Canada Baron - Beneath the Blazing Abyss, Finland

Yet metal is still just one of the many different forms of rock music. Your original question "Is metal rock or an entirely different genre?" is like asking are roses flowers or an entirely different category? Because roses and daffodils look so different, they couldn't possibly both be the same thing. Obviously they're not always that far apart as you seem to think because I've seen lots of people over the years arguing whether certain bands are rock or metal. If the two genres were so completely different it would be self evident which category bands fall into. But obviously there's a point at which the two genres intersect and it becomes difficult for some people to distinguish between the two. How do you define how "strong" a band's music is anyway? Take old Black Sabbath records for example. They're a 70's hard rock band with a heavy blues influence that many metalheads want to bestow heavy metal status on in retrospect. Why is that, they're clearly hard rock? Are 70's Sabbath and 70's Priest really that far apart? Priest is known as one of the first heavy metal bands, but their first 4 albums are just blues based hard rock like early Sabbath, Uriah Heep or Deep Purple. Heavy metal got started as just some bands taking hard rock music to the next logical progressive step. Most of your very earliest 80's heavy metal bands were playing music that was really not that radically different from the Zeppelins and Sabbaths that had inspired them.

Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht (Boulez)

Immortal - "Damned in Black" Immortal - "War Against All"

Metal and rock are too far apart the hardest rock is not as strong as the least heavy forms of metal. Even in the early days metal took more from blues than rock

Meldrum - Loaded Mental Cannon

Nargaroth - Semper Fidelis, Germany 2007 Graveland - Carpathian Wolves, Poland 1994 Epheles - Je Suis Autrefois, France 2011

DROPTHEHAMMER - Greed Misery

Was with my youngest son trying out guitars, he bought his first and it was a Kramer Baretta. Was really surprised how good this thing played and sounded at that price, having owned a Stryker in the 90's I was not expecting much but was pleasantly surprised. Thin neck with the typical basswood body used in recent times and single humbucker in the bridge being the only pickup it leaves a lot of options for mods and upgrades, the tuners were better than expected and stays relatively in tune after dive bombing the trem. Even though it does not come with a gig bag which would have shite anyways I don't think you could get a better deal for less than $300. Wish I had this option when I was learning in the 60's 😅🤘

Marty Friedman - Dragon's Kiss

I don't use lossy services. If a service can't offer me audio bitrate of AT LEAST 1411 kbps PCM WAV, I don't bother looking at them for a second time.

Opeth/My Arms, Your Hearse-Ok, after several spins of the rather gloomy and rainy Morningrise, this is starting to sound more like the Opeth I came to know with BWP and Ghost reveries.

Fantastic choice! Such an underrated band. I really enjoy the albums Ripper is on, but Barlow is a great singer in his own right.

Iced Earth - Something Wicked This Way Comes

Accept - "Humanoid" Judas Priest - "Invincible Shield"

Apparition - Fear The Apparition

NP: Hasturian Vigil - Unveiling the Brac'thal ▶︎ Unveiling the Brac'thal | Hasturian Vigil | Invictus Productions (bandcamp.com) This one has some teeth to it. The Absu influence is very clearly present, but it's definitely got it's own thing going. Honestly this is probably one of the better bm releases I've heard this year. Obviously in the drumming department you're not going to find some one as good as Proscriptor, but that's because only Proscriptor is as good as Proscriptor. It's nice to hear them using their drums in a completely different way. Creative and energetic riffwork as well with just enough stylization to keep it out of mopey "depressive" black metal territory and they have a knack for finding the best spots in their songs to insert some leads. I like it.

Ulcerate - promo tracks from the new one Vauruvã - Por Nós da Ventania

Clutch - Transnational Speedway League - reissue gatefold Bad Religion - Generator - anniversary edition gatefold

OBITUARY - Live

HEALTH - Volume 4:: Slaves of Fear (2019)

Here's the lyric video, and it's also on all streaming platforms. One man show at the moment, looking for band members in North Jersey.