The Strategos

Re: Rob VS Ronnie VS Bruce

Re: The Nightsweat Zone - The Worst Gig In The World Ever!!! Hey hey, great to hear from everybody! To answer my own question, my nightmare would probably be: Englebert Humperdink Paul McCartney Kanye West Leona Lewis Oasis Yup, to me that would be hell !

Re: Metal Jokes! Metal Jokes? What keeps even hardened death metallers awake at night, quivering in fear? A bottle of shampoo! An emo and a metalhead walk into a bar and the barman puts a strong beer and an alcopop on the table. The metalhead grabs the alcopop and the emo downs the beer. Why did Anthrax miss their first ever gig in New Zealand? Customs put them in quarentine. And finally one which is not my own but which applies to the biker metalhead (perhaps ). What's the difference between a motorbike and a vacuum cleaner (apart from the blindingly obvious, that is)? The position of the dirt-bag. O.K. these probably suck but I thought that I'd give it a go, hope you like !

Hi everybody, So, in your worst dreams, during a bad cold or when your drunk, you are dragged off to a gig by your boyfriend/girlfriend/best friend - but the five act line up is the most horrific thing you have ever seen in your life. What is that line up? P.S. Rants welcome !!!

Hi Thrash Monkeys! I was wondering if you could help me. A while ago I bought Megadeath's Endgame album and thought it was really good, so good that I went out and bought the Cryptic Writings album and I thought it basically sucked. I wonder if there where any more albums like Endgame or whether they are mostly like Cryptic Writings?

Re: How Metal Affects You How metal affects me? Simple - it makes me feel wonderful!!! And as for the idea that metal is depressing well that's just silly, isn't it? I can't even imagine where people get that idea from! I totally agree with Murph1990 that metal has a much freer range of themes and I can only imagine the idea of depression comes from an overexposure of EMO and Grunge bands (I know they're not metal but I'm really not convinced the average non-fan differentiates ), though I think Iceni also makes a good point when he says how metal is happy to take on serious themes of which pop is afraid.

Hi Everyone, O.K. so my idea for a symphonic metal blog went down like a lead balloon and with understandable reason. However, though I can yak about some Sympho bands in Folk and others in Power, I still can't find anywhere to talk about the Gothic strains of Symphonic except in the dark pit of "More Sub-Genres". I mean, if Battle Metal can have its own section, can't Gothic? After all, there is a very clear genre in Gothic Metal, heavy, heady, dark and bass and I think it would be awesome to have a place to discuss everyone from Epica to Lacuna Coil and all the rest. But that's just what I think !

Re: Rob VS Ronnie VS Bruce Hi Everyone, I have to say Bruce, I mean the man is an absolute marvel, though I do admit that Dio has a fantastic voice - I love his work with Rainbow. Indeed, I guess he probably has the better voice, especially considering Bruce's slightly diminished talents, but I just feel that as an overall package Bruce is a sheer powerhouse of performance energy. P.S. Hello Barbie1989, I never expected to find a fellow OU student on here, rock on

Re: Band Names Hey Iceni, These are great - I wish I could come up with good names, all I can think of is the silly ones!

Re: Band Names How about (not seriously ): Heart Burn. Morbid Sparrows. Chincilla Swarm (with front man Windon Raine!) Belch of The Hell-Curry. Sweat. Toxic Tantrums. Dayhope. Swordblood. Interdental Chaos. Chintz. Gorgon Terror. Mastocator. Blocked Toilet. Splat. Knights of the Night.

Re: IRON MAIDEN Don't get me wrong, I love Maiden, especially Brave New World (don't ask - I just think it's increadible ). However, I think that their popularity probably stems from the fact that they're not really metal are they? I mean, they are metal, but their distortion is quiet light and the whole tone is hardly brutal or low pitched, so much so that they could almost be classed as progressive rock (oh, save me from beardy men banging on about Pink Floyd! ). This means that they are fairly unlikely to offend from a musical (though perhaps not a lyrical) perspective and will have a large potential customer base - particularly for the Danii Minogues of this world you like to "rock out" and think they're really wild for listening to the comparatively soft world of Maiden.

Re: Books? I hate D.C. too ! I mean, I admit that I have never read one of their comics, but I hate the look of their characters (except Batman in the recent films) and loathe the whole "we got ourselves in a mess now with backstories so we are just going to change the timeline and say that all your carefully collected comics never happened". I'm a Marvel man myself, though as a Limey we run about a year and a half behind the US. However, at least you buy proper little editions of several comics (such a the first three parts of an X-Men story) with nice card covers which mean the precious pages are protected! Anybody read X-Men: Second Coming? I thought that that was absolutely insanely good!

Re: Shit Music KieranC94, Aaargh, what can I say about modern chart music! Well, I think that I'd better bullet point my main hates about it. Repetativenes: Ahhhhhhh! Every single song sounds just like all the others! Either its a slightly empowering but still oh so sad weepy weepy (I'm not crying!!!! ) ballad or its some punks on a dance song with a pathetic synthy dance riff while the lyrics contain far too many repetions of the word "girl" or some other ghastly stereotype. Arrogance: Cher Loyd? Who the hell does she think she is the conceited little madam! Swagger Jagger, hmmmph, well, let me tell you missy he has more originality and talent in his little finger than you have in you entire being! Cheryl Cole's not much better with her whole "oh, and I'm going to get real offended now with you Simon cause I disagree and I'm Cheryl so I must be right" act. And as for rappers (apart from a very, very few), well. "Hnnn, yeah, I'm wondeful, hnn, I have an attitude to women which makes feminism seem never to have happened, hnn, yeah, oh yeah, I have no responsibility with money but that's O.K. because I deserve everything I want, uhu uhu, and my opinions really count and I'm real, yeah," whatever that means! Lexicon: Especially rappers, filling the English language which all their nonsense slang (swag? SWAG!) which they have to invent because they can't get a dictionary from the library because they can't spell it! And they have a vocabulary of about fifty words, which they don't even make rhyme properly and they fill in all the gaps with lots of "hot damn" and swearing and general talk about their sexual prowess. Creativity: Very, very few of these talentless morons even write their own blinking music but then have the nerve to sit their while being interviewed and spout drivel about what the lyrics (which are inevitably drivel) mean to them and how it reminds them of how their mother got trampled to death by an elephant at the zoo when they where three and so they are doing this album for their memory, to make them "proud" (nothing to do with the money, fame and license to get away with murder). And since when did everybody have the blasted right to go around being proud of everybody? It's patronising and mawkish. Just stop it, stop it now!!!! Eek, I think that I have said enough now!

My singniture says it all for me really, a quote from the "Song of Myself" off Nightwish's Imaginaerum album!

Re: Rate and Slate Rating Operatic Vocals in metal Slating Soppy boys who sing while strumming acoustic guitars and call their performances "stripped down" - what a meaningless twerp term!

Re: Leaves' Eyes AWWWWWW! Just listening to Amberian Dawn's Arctica - now that's what I'm talking about, yes, yes, YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Thanks Iceni!

Re: Books?

Re: Leaves' Eyes Thanks NTNR, what a great list!!! I can't wait to try them! P.S. Delain's second album is muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhh better than their first, more polished, more consistant in style and all the better for sticking with one singer.

Re: Books? Books NTNR? Well, for me the master books are (as I know have been discussed at great length in this thread so I won't go on about it) the Harry Potter cannon and from what I have heard Twilight stinks (to put it mildly). As for other reading, I never seem to have much time to read, and when I do have a little it's only for comic books. However, when I do I rather like the Skullduggery Pleasant and Simon Scarrow's Eagle novels - the former a hilarious fantasy set in Ireland and the latter Historical Actioners about two chalk and cheese Roman soldiers, Macro and Cato. I also read the Bounre Identity, which was awesome!

Re: Leaves' Eyes

Re: Bullet For My Valentine Hi Iceni, How does one distinguish? IMHO one doesn't, I don't believe there is such a thing as stealing as no band sets out only to sound like another and, again IMHO, they are just people who love metal so much they want to play it all the time and give people joy through their songs. And anyway, is copy-catting always bad? After all, if you really like a band's sound, but they then get bored of it or become jaded, is it not better to have someone with fresh enthusiasm pick up the sound? Just some of my, no doubt to be ridiculed , thoughts. P.S. Slipknot, BFMV, Trivium etc. rock hard!!!

Mnnnn! I do like an Aston!

Re: Leaves' Eyes

Re: Leaves' Eyes

Re: Leaves' Eyes I apologise if I caused offense, BlutAusNerd, I meant only to jest a little, as my "Gulp!" in my response to Iceni indicates.