Iceni

Re: Greetings From the Desert Land Well, I lack a proper appreciation of Pain Of Salvation, Porcupine Tree or Tiles. Maybe it's just because I'm too impatient for crunch. That would also explain why I haven't got any Opeth yet, even though everything I hear from them is good. I love a good riff but I don't want to have to wait through 2 minutes of intro just to get to it and then only get 30 seconds worth of awesome before they do something else. But prog metal is, I think, the most under-appreciated metal genre. Even other metalheads don't like it. Death metal fans say it lacks guts, and it's too odd for everyone else. BAH HUMBUG! Listen to Redemption or the latest Threshold and tell me you don't get the best of all worlds: enthusiasm, musicianship and lyrics.

Re: NINJA METAL Actually, I think Hibria already stole your idea. You tell me they weren't on an energy drink high watching Terminator 2 when they saw Arnold riding that Harley and thought: "Biker metal...metal dude riding a metal bike...STEEL LORD ON WHEELS!"

Re: hammer fall! Well, they're my second favorite band. For goodness sake, they introduced me to power metal! They made me like the whole genre. Sadly, Last Man Standing is, perhaps, their last song standing. No Sacrifice, No Victory was a shambles and I don't think Infection is much better, although at least they're back to their old melodic roots. But a concept album based on zombies? No. We want more of Renegade, dang it! Or that one song...the song which should be a power metal anthem... HEARTS ON FIRE, HEARTS ON FIRE... Oh yes. Bring us back to those days ye Swedish crusaders. Bring us the goofy stage behavior or Joachim Cans and Anders Johansson. Bring us the tacky aluminum foil pants of Stefan Elmgren. Heed the words of your own song, Destined for Glory: Fight with your heart and you're destined for glory But fight without soul and you will lose it all You haven't lost it all, HammerFall. You can rebound from this. Elvenking recovered from 'The Scythe'. if they can recover from that travesty, you can.

Re: Good folk metal bands? Depends on the region. There are folk metal bands for almost any ancient culture you want to pick. I'd say people have got the Finnish folk scene and Celtic folk metal pretty well covered, although I didn't see Cruachan pop up. South America: there isn't much here, but Peruvian bands seem the most authentic. Chaska is my favorite. They're a folk/death combo. Celtic areas: Folkstone is an Italian band, but their bagpipes are pretty authentic. They sound like they're directly from the Highland games. Other than that, fairly typical folk metal fare. Leaves' Eyes new album Meredead has a lot of Celtic and apparently Old English influences. Viking/Norse Pagan: Svartsot is great: they have penny-whistles and immensely folky, powerful guitars mated to brutal death growling. Heljareyga is a side project of Heri Joensen from Tyr, ostensibly with a viking flavor. Heidevolk, while Dutch and Saxon, still qualifies as Norse pagan since they mention Wodan and Donar, which seem to be variants of Oden and Thor. Plus they bring clean vocals into folk metal, WHICH NO ONE SEEMS TO DO. Eastern Europe: Oddly enough, my favorite one from here is a very little-known group called Oskord; they use flutes as their prime folk instrument. Middle East: Narjahanam, Arsames, Orphaned Land, Melechesh, Myrath (a bit more progressive). Refer to the 'arab metal' thread for more about these. East Asia: Shangren is a Chinese group which does actually sound Chinese. I can't name the instruments but check them out anyway. Rudra is a powerful black metal assault from Singapore who sings about some history in the area. Alchemist, from Australia, uses dijeridoos in one song, Austral Spectrum. Dijeridoo is an Australian aborigine instrument. Africa: Sorry...nothing south of the Sahara.

Re: As for 'bad music', I'd argue that it's music that lacks any of the attributes which make music good in my opinion: a strong mood, sincerity, passion, technical skill and edifying lyrics. I would argue Lady Gaga lacks many of these attributes but I can't say she totally sucks as a vocalist. The same goes for Katy Perry. Avril Lavigne, on the other hand, lacks all of these attributes... I feel excessively hostile whenever I hear 'Girlfriend' under any circumstances. I need a healthy shot of Christian Alvestam afterward. People are also lazy. They don't want to bother researching what their musicians are saying: just as long as the artist goes to a gay pride parade or helps support solar energy or hosts a concert to raise money for Darfur aid camps, these people are happy. They don't bother looking past the good beat. Apparently a tagline from an old show called 'American bandstand' said music was good 'as long as it had a good beat and you could dance to it'. The general pop-music populace seem to have swallowed this idea in its entirety, assisted by American Idol and the X Factor. There's no demand for complexity any more, because people won't appreciate it. I was in London for a day and I tuned into the radio. I almost literally heard nothing but techno the entire time. And it was not good techno. Oh no. It was the blandest electro-beat I'd ever heard. It made Darude sound technical. (Perhaps those of you who are from the UK could corroborate this account?) My least favorite stuff is the boy-bands, the castrato-rockers, especially when they ask their listeners if they are 'ready to rock', not if they are 'ready to pretend that they are rocking when in fact they would soil their pants with fright if they got within 100 meters of a Battlelore concert'.

Re: Shit Music What really gets me are the anti-metal videos. I suppose they're trying to promote the merits of other genres and the harms of metal music, but that would be a wildly optimistic assessment. Depending on your sense of humor and confidence in logic, you might want to read the AntiMetalClub's tirade on YouTube about how metal is bad. It'll deliver a whole new perception of just how foolish your average pop chart scanner really is when it comes to music. The entire message reads like a string of Twitter-type responses without proper capitalization, punctuation, grammar or even spelling. There's another user called prepee4life (if that's not a humongous hint to her musical tastes) who made some pathetic remarks about metal that were so badly phrased that they actually strengthened the case of the female metalhead arguing against her. If you read the response to prepee4life's idiotic video, it's a riot. On an intellectual level the metalhead rebuttals are, by and large, leagues ahead of the blathering trash these 'critics' shell out. They're carefully constructed, use pertinent evidence and point out the plain redundancies and lack of logic or research in the arguments. It's certainly a nice riposte to those who claim that metal makes you stupid...

Re: Best Metal Drummer? Since this is a forum for links, I'll post some... Sympathy first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th96M_qflOU&feature=related Then Quo Vadis Tom Diener of German progressive metal band Tomorrow's Eve is also good but not a death metal drummer. So is Andreas Johansson of Rob Rock and Christ Quirarte of Redemption. Sorry if this is a bit much. Now, I'm not a drummer so I can't judge drumming talent as well as someone who does play the instrument.

Re: Best Metal Drummer? I know two that I think are very good. Jim Austin of the band Sympathy. Look at the song Enslaved By Tyranny. YANIC BERCIER from QUO VADIS. Absolution (Element of the Ensemble III) is amazing.

Re: Devin Townsend It would have the 'heavy sound' that he's apparently known for... If you ask some people, Meshuggah could do the same. As long as the fart's got djent, no one will give a rat's rump.

Re: whats the most wired or funny metal sub-genres you heard I don't know... ever hear Slechtvalk, Extol, Vardoger or Antestor? All of them are Christian. Even declared non-Christian reviewers seem to like Antestor. I don't like black metal, but Slechtvalk's the one I do like. They invert the generally anti-Christian themes in black metal to being anti-pagan themes, and end up being a great counter-punch to Amon Amarth. If you were ever under the impression that Christian lyrics never address the idea of zealous bloothirst, look at Slechtvalk's lyrics.

Re: arab metal Well, there are several bands that do that. Orphaned Land is probably most famous for playing folk metal in the Middle East, but they're Hebrew, not Arab. Al-Namrood, a Saudi Arabian black metal band, is probably the best known Arabic metal group I can think of. Their similarities are primarily in rhythm and melody, not necessarily instrumentation. Maybe you might want to check out Arsames from Iran. Granted, they're not Arabic, they're Persian, and they also don't use folk instruments, but the influence is clearly there. Of course, Al-Namrood (named for a demonic figure in Arabic legends) is flagrantly anti-clerical so I don't like them much. But Myrath is awesome! If Symphony X were all Middle Eastern and had strong folk elements, they'd sound like this Tunisian group. Narjahanam from Bahrain are Arabic folk/death. They're probably the purest synthesis - they even sing about Middle Eastern history.

Re: Neurotech This reminds me a lot of Omnium Gatherum and Dark Tranquillity. They've also got a Fear Factory vibe going on with a bit of Neue Deutche Harte elements. ATMOSPHERE FTW. Needless to say I've made sure to get their album Antagonist...

Re: Greetings From the Desert Land Thank you all very much. I also forgot to list the Tunisian band Myrath. They're a lot like Symphony X if they went more progressive and had Middle Eastern folk music influences. Definitely a band which deserves more publicity. The name means 'legacy' in Arabic. I hope that's what they'll leave! As for Metal4EffingEver (I apologize if my capitalization is wrong), it's my brother who recommended the forum. Since I didn't get any viruses I decided it was worth a shot joining.

When the United States wanted a top-secret laboratory for Enrico Fermi, Robert Oppenheimer and Albert Einstein to flesh out their idea for a superweapon, guess where they looked? My home state of New Mexico. It has carried on its proud tradition of being dry, desolate and known primarily for being the birthplace of the atom bomb. Unfortunately, nuclear blasts at Trinity site do not equal Nuclear Blast on the record label. The music scene here is filled to the brim with obnoxious drivel. When I'm not listening to the umpteenth country or 50's rock n' roll group at the local concert series, I'm being barraged with the apish bass thump of your generic rap music or some ear-grating pop. Then there's the alt-rock, punk rock and hardcore, which helps me understand why Dying Fetus wants to destroy things so often. Granted, there's some good classical guitar music and the man teaching me guitar is a Brazilian jazz player by trade. By and large, however, New Mexico is indeed a desert land as far as metal goes. For that matter, the US is pretty desolate. I've got to go all the way to Atlanta for ProgPower USA...if only... At any rate, I'm a weird conglomerate of apparently diametrically opposed traits. I am a Presbyterian Christian who believes in old-earth creation. I am an avid Harry Potter fan. I have what most people would call a mullet. In addition to that, I am, of course, a metalhead. My favorite genres are: progressive power metal, progressive metal, symphonic power metal, technical death metal, melodeath and folk metal. Some of my top bands, their countries of origin and metal type: Harmony- Swedish Christian progpower. My favorite band of all time - their album Chapter II: the Aftermath is top-notch Threshold- English progressive metal. I like their later material with Andrew MacDermott and their enthusiasm Darksun - Spanish symphonic power metal. As the name suggests, it's dark music. Galloglass - German power metal. This is gutsy power metal about dragonslaying. Oxymoron? Maybe not... Seventh Wonder -Swedish progressive metal. Utterly top-notch material. Iron Savior - more German power metal.These guys are more traditional, but that just means the guitars scream louder. Thy Majestie - Italian symphonic power metal. Their album Jeanne d'Arc tells the story of the French heroine very well Sabaton - Swedish power metal with a powerful punch, singing about about WAR! 7days - Swedish progpower. They're a lot like Harmony but at a slower tempo. Aletheian - American technical death metal. Their musicianship is good and their lyrics are pretty hard to beat. Miseration - Swedish technical/melodic death metal. Yes, Christian metal can destroy, if you've got Scar Symmetry's vocalist. Scar Symmetry- I can't imagine they need an introduction. Amazing Swedish progressive death metal HammerFall - well, they once were the Swedish kings of power metal in my book. Their early-to mid-year material's still good. Raintime - Italian melodeath with a large emphasis on melody. Flies and Lies is their only good album in my opinion. Dark Tranquillity - again, don't think I'll bother...see Scar Symmetry... Heidevolk - my favorite folk metal band. These Dutch Saxons bring a refreshing take on the genre. Svartsot - Danish folk metal. Some of their songs are in jig-time so you who do Scottish dance can pas-de-basque to it. Symphony X- a band that gets the publicity they deserve. Redemption - impassioned American prog metal, fast becoming one of my favorite bands. Quo Vadis - Canadian tech death masters. Sympathy- a little-known but highly impressive Canadian Christian tech death band. Check out their song Potter's Field. Battlelore- Finnish battle metal which never fails to impress me. Their new album Doombound is out Random Eyes - another good Finnish band with a bit of a rock vibe, but still good progressive metal material. HB - probably my favorite gothic metal band. They're also from Finland. Pikki Lihassa is probably their best material. Orphaned Land - made me respect the Hebrews... I just got interested in them recently. Apologies for the long list; I'm planning to major in international relations so I need to be able to generate lots of material off the top of my head. Anyhow, I very much looking forward to meeting a more international gamut of metal brethren!