All Activity

Agent Steel - No Other Godz Before Me (2021) It feels like many years have passed for John Cyriis. If he still knows how to hit the high notes as he did in the days of Skeptics Apocalypse, it's clear that he has to work hard to do so. The music behind it is still well-crafted melodic speed.

Atrocity - Unspoken Names (Demo 1991) (2022)

Megadeth - The Sick, the Dying... and the Dead! (2022)

Tsjuder - Kill for Satan (2000)

Excellent choice! Crowbar is one of my top 5 favorite metal bands - not a single weak album in the 12-album discography. "Broken Glass" and "Odd Fellows Rest" are my two favorites, and I think "Sonic Excess in Its Purest Form" is the most underrated. "Sever the Wicked Hand" could probably fall into that category as well. Just a fantastic band. Candlemass - "King of the Grey Islands"

Crowbar - S/T

Krisiun - Mortem Solis (2022)

Les Enfants de Dagon - De Profundis (2022)

Woods of Ypres - Woods 5: Grey Skies & Electric Light (2012) Katatonia - Brave Murder Day (1996)

Hi @GoatmasterGeneral 🤘 Thanks for your long post! 👌 I don't know if all the bands from Eastern France are as pissed off as the 3 you posted, but you have to admit that for them, Germany isn't far away and when it comes to extreme metal, it's not a soft country over there 😅 Yes, I used to live in Paris, but now I live in the south-west of France. Bayonne is famous for its smoked hams, which are simply delicious. I didn't know about Jersey. Where I live, in Charente-Maritime, we're best known for our Pineau (a liqueur wine drunk as an aperitif) and our galette charentaise (a shortcrust cake with pieces of angelica inside, a plant used to make candied fruit). And Bordeaux, with all its luscious wines, is just over 60 miles away. My favorite French bands are few and far between, but I listen to them regularly: ADX (melodic speed), Daemonium/Akhenaton/Sangdragon (symphonic black, 3 bands but only one person behind the helm), Eros Necropsique (gothic without electric guitar, just vocals, bass and drums), Hexecutor (thrash), Kalisia (sci-fy metal, author of a magnificent album, Cybion, but very difficult to access), The Last Tomb (Coroner-style thrash), Les Enfants de Dagon (black), Les Vieilles Salopes (the old sluts, punk), Loudblast (a little), Massacra (death), Mercyless (Eastern death), Misanthrope, Nemo (aggressive prog rock), No Return (thrash/death), Paydretz (black), Sortilège (heavy), Undead Prophecies (old school death), Voight Kampff (thrash). Some of these bands no longer exist, but I like some of their records. Gojira isn't really my thing. In the 80's, Metal in France was limited to a few bands and was considered as an old-fashioned music (even though the style was not so popular). Now, the bands number in the thousands and the scene is not ridiculous.

Bon jour Ari. Every morning you come and I think maybe I should listen to some French bands. Never realized how many French metal bands there actually were 'til you showed up here. I've noticed tonight that all 3 of these bands are from various towns in the eastern part of France, not far from Switzerland. Would you say this is probably just a coincidence, or are the people from eastern French just more grindy for the most part? I know they have to grind the mustard to make dijon (the only type of mustard I'll eat) maybe that grinding mentality has spilled over into their music. You're down in the southwest part of France near Bordeaux right? I love looking at European maps and seeing all the various names of places we've adopted here in America. I see you have a Bayonne over there in Aquitaine, we have one too right here in New Jersey, also a port city. And even "Jersey" is the name of a place in France. We're practically brothers! It's funny my ex's father was French so she used to always ask if we could go to France one day. And I always told her no because I never had any desire to see France. We hear stories here in the states about how the French hate Americans because we come over there acting all loud and pompous and entitled and uncouth and idiotic and none of us speak a word of French, we just expect you guys to cater to us. Shit, I don't want to be one of those stupid Americans. I've always wanted to see Spain or Greece or Scandinavia or even the UK could be cool, but never France. But now that I've found all these French bands I've become a little bit curious about France. Not gonna ask my ex though, she got tired of waiting for me and finally made it to France with her sister a couple of years ago. Chiens - Vultures Are Our Future, crust/grind from Nancy France Warfuck - Diptyque, grindcore from Lyon France 2023 Whoresnation - Dearth, deathgrind from Besançon France 2022

Black Sabbath - Mob Rules

The Boneless Ones - Back To The Grind (2022)

Devin Townsend - Snuggles

Catacomb - When the Stars are Right (2023)

Bolt Thrower - Realm Of Chaos

Wyrms - Sarkhral Lumænor, France 2022 Merrimack - Of Entropy and Life Denial, France 2006 I most certainly do! Ramones were the best American pure rock & roll band ever afaic. We take them for granted now, but Johnny Ramone while an asshole personally, was a fucking genius on his $50 guitar. No one had heard riffing like that before 1976. But of course it's the shredders like Eddie Van Halen and Randy Rhodes who get all the accolades. There ya go big guy, I can account for my taste, can you account for yours? The Ramones - It's Alive! The legendary concert was held at the Rainbow Theatre in Finsbury Park, London, on December 31st, 1977. Rock music doesn't get any better than this! Timeless.

Yeah, but you love the Ramones. TINAFT.

Lich King - Toxic Zombie Onsalught

Vallenfyre - A Fragile King brackets 2012)

Orden Ogan - "Gunmen" Exodus - "Persona non Grata"

Yeah I love me some good hard rock. Not too surprising since I grew up in the hard rock era after all, although my tastes run to the less commercial more garagey diy kinda bands. Polished rock, aka radio friendly rock, is not really my thing. So yeah all those "classic" rock bands from the 70's are gonna be the bigger selling radio darling bands, and back then the record companies had more influence over young bands and would often pressure them into finding better vocalists. The biggest selling stuff was all mostly vocal driven so they figured they'd need someone skilled in that area to put them over the top into the upper echelon of the bigtime multi-million sellers. But what happens with your lesser known bands is that a lot of the time singers who might not be as technically proficient can still become quite endearing to us when we listen to them repeatedly and get used to their voices. I take issue with your characterization of these types as sub-par though. Over the years I've put lots of vocalists into what I'll call the 'so bad they're good' category. Lemmy obviously comes to mind, the dude from Briton Rites, Joey Ramone, and I'm sure there are many more that just aren't coming immediately to mind. Mr Garcia falls into this category as well. He seems to be very polarizing, people have strong feelings about him as a singer one way or the other. I really like him myself, even though I'm not the biggest Kyuss fan. Their high points were very high, but for me they're few and far between. Those Kyuss albums were chockers with filler and other nonsense that was a waste of my time. So I can't listen to complete Kyuss albums, if anything I'll make a playlist of cherry-picked tracks, Gardenia, Green Machine, Thumb, Demon Cleaner...I like John better for his more riff driven hard rock stuff. But unlike most people, technical vocal ability and superior musicianship just aren't qualities that are in any way important to me when I'm evaluating rock music (or trad heavy metal either). I value songwriting, cool riffs, heaviness and attitude. If you can play well too that's ok, but it's absolutely not required for my enjoyment. More than a few of my favorite bands started out barely being able to play their instruments. But they had that passion and they eventually became at least competent. Predictably, you seem to dig the Sabbathy 'stoner' end of post-80's hard rock, while a good portion of the stripped down hard rock music I personally listen to and enjoy the most seems to get put into the punk rock category. Your Zekes and your Supersuckers and your Peter Pan Speedrocks and your Nashville Pussy's and your Mud City Manglers. Many of these bands I think formed as straight-forward hard rock bands (and they are) but then just got adopted by the punks for some reason. Maybe because of their rough around the edges sounds and counter-culture fuck you attitudes. But I'm not complaining, even though I've always identified more as a metalhead than as a punk. Because as an old boomer counter-culture guy I tend to actually really like punks better than most people. Not that I have any problem relating to "straight guys" like you either. Not to mention all those disco kids in school who laughed at me in 1976 when I thought the Ramones were hands down the freshest and most awesome rock band ever to come down the pike. Kids who I'd imagine are now 48 years later probably a bunch of 'straight' upstanding normie middle class suburban establishment guys who wear suits and blazers and slacks n shit. One question though, who's Roger Plant? Did he by any chance play on Opeth's Morningside? Really? Just had a brief listen and that's not how I would describe it. I don't get the hype with these dudes.

Blazon Stone - No Sign Of Glory

Me too. I'll be into this ASAP.

Seconded w/ gusto