FatherAlabaster

Between these two, I'll take option two. Would you rather catch a local show with some actually good bands with solid musicians playing in a sort of weak style you don't really dig, or see some local and not extraordinarily skilled metal bands stumble their way through various interpretations of styles-du-jour from the past twenty-odd years? This is pertinent to my current situation.

That's a good suggestion. I'd like to even change the name of that section to "Promotions" so we have less misunderstandings. We've been hoping to get the descriptions for several of the sections updated for quite some time now, along with moving some sections around within the forum so things are laid out a little more clearly. Our admin @dilatedmind is the person who will have to handle that kind of work, and he's a pretty busy guy. Hopefully he'll be able to get to some of this in the near future. As far as your post, I'm honestly not worried about it, you seem like you're off to a good start here.

I've heard the name but not the music. This sounds promising, thanks for sharing.

Abigor - Nachthymnen Slidhr - The Futile Fires Of Man Grey Heaven Fall - Black Wisdom

Quite a story, looks like you and I are about the same age but I didn't start getting into metal until about 1990-91. "Load" really was a kick in the teeth when it came out. 1995 was a fantastic year for metal in general, but I do remember a lot of stalwarts watering down their sound or folding up after that. Where I was living (North Carolina), I recall more black metal started showing up in the record stores right around then -- especially the Scandinavian stuff -- so that became my main interest for a while. 2000 is when I went to college, and started getting into more first-wave BM, some mathcore, some power metal, and rediscovered my love for death metal. The internet definitely helped with that, but I still got most of my recommendations from friends. If you don't mind my asking, what brought you from LA to Serbia? That seems like a pretty big relocation.

I was excited about these guys when I first heard Groza but I've felt let down by every release since. There are some cool parts here and there, but overall they strike me as being content to churn out a product with well-defined limits. "Exercises" is a step up from "Hearts", but there's still too much in there that sounds like boilerplate and sets my teeth on edge. I'd like to like them better than I do. Maybe someday I'll come around. Heard good things about the live show.

Moved.

One of the many highlights of 90s Finnish death metal.

See folks? ^^^ This right here is how you introduce yourself and your band. Welcome to the forum. I would love to get to Wacken someday, although it seems like a pretty faint prospect at this point. 70000 Tons is another story, I don't think I could take being stuck on a boat with that many people for that long. Maybe it's just me, but it seems like small venues are disappearing everywhere. Our best place here in town just shut their doors recently. Makes it harder to keep a scene alive. Doom and gloom, the end of days, etc. Anyway, hope you enjoy the place.

We've been getting more than the usual amount of people signing up to dump music links and other odds and ends around the place lately, so it's time to revisit our guidelines for sharing music and other content. 1: Read through the forum a bit. It really helps if you get to know the community before you join. 2: Introduce yourself. Not your band or your website... yourself. No need for tons of personal details, but at least tell us a bit about your music taste and what brings you here. If you signed up to promote, it's fine to mention that, but NO promo links are allowed in the intro section - personal introductions only. 3: If you want to promote something, do it in the Promote Yourself section. Don't do it anywhere else. We keep fan discussions and promotion separate; promotion outside of the promo section isn't allowed. If it's yours, it's promotion. Your death metal band does not go in the "Death Metal" forum. Your new DSBM track does not go in the "Depressive Suicidal Black Metal" thread. Your Youtube review channel does not go in "Best Metal Youtube"; your Spotify playlist does not go in "What Are You Listening To". Same thing for your blog site, friend's band, label, PR company, streaming radio, graphic art services, mixing/mastering business, internet comic, self-published novella, metal-themed board game concept, etc... All of this belongs in "Promote Yourself". One thread per band/project/business/website. Update your thread when you have something new to share, but no bumping to keep it on top. Nobody here cares what's on top anyway. What about gray areas? There are always gray areas. If you're being compensated for posting in any way, or your main goal is to get clicks/views or drive traffic to another site, you're not in a gray area; that's promotion. If you wrote an article or list that you want to share, and we have to click through to another site to read it, that's promotion. The "Album Reviews" section is for posting actual reviews, not glowing PR copy. The "Your Artwork" thread is for sharing your personal art, but if you're posting there to drum up interest and get work, that's promotion. The "Vocals Talk" and instrument discussion sections are ok to post music in if you actually want feedback or advice about technique or gear, but they're not for sharing finished music. Similarly, it's ok to post a sample of what you do in the "Looking For A Band Member" and "Looking For A Band" sections, within reason, but don't turn it into a promo thread. A text link in your signature to your website, FB page, Bandcamp, etc is ok; a music video or Soundcloud player in your signature is not. This isn't an exhaustive list. Use your head. If you're actually in doubt about whether what you're posting counts as promo, ask one of the moderators. But frankly, if you're here to promote, just be honest about it and keep your posts in the appropriate section. There's nothing to be gained by trying to game the system. There's no system. 4: If you're not here just to promote, and you really want to hang out and chat about metal, it's a good idea to have some conversations with people before you start posting links. It helps us understand where you're coming from. It helps you not look like a spammer. 5: Whether or not you're promoting, WRITE SOMETHING about whatever you share. Describe it. Don't post a link by itself; that's virtually guaranteed to be deleted. Don't just say "what do you guys think of this?" or "looking for feedback". Put some more effort in. This goes double for newcomers, and triple for people sharing anything in any of the recommendation or discussion threads. Everybody loves a good recommendation, but if you can't be bothered to write a bit about it, don't bother posting it. Why should you care about any of this? Simply put, you should care because otherwise the staff will delete your posts and you might get banned. We treat promotion outside of the promo section as spam. This is a music discussion community. The more you contribute, the more likely it is that some of us will get interested in your stuff, and the more likely we are to cut you some slack if it looks like you're out of bounds.

Thanks Dave, we're alright I'm sad for the people who got hurt, and it's not the first time I've wished we had bars on the windows.

No need to apologize, that's what the forum is here for. Several of the regulars including myself have gotten pretty long-winded or been guilty of oversharing at times, it comes with the territory. Glad you're finding some value in it.

Isole's vocalist is fantastic, very cool that you got to record with him.

Yeah, it's scary, sad, disconcerting. Definitely weighing on my mind pretty heavily. According to what I read, it was a break-in and rape committed by someone who knew the tenants, and the fellow who got killed just had the bad luck to be home when the break-in happened. I don't know these people but I'm positive I've run into them over the past few years. Thanks for sharing all of this, that sounds like a difficult experience. It's unfortunately not the first time we've been close to violence here. At least they got the guy who did it this time. I agree with your general point that kids do a lot better with loving and stable home environments; we all benefit when we have supportive, caring families or communities regardless of age. It's important to feel like we matter. It's a shame that so much of what you touch on has become fodder for the culture wars over the past few decades. They're important topics, but they've become so infected with emotion, conflated with one another, and entangled with people's identities that they're difficult to talk about, and expert voices get drowned out. I don't think mental illness should bear the stigma that it does in connection with violence; but then, I'm not an expert. Regarding what happened in my neighborhood, who can say what this guy's motivations were... it sounds to me like he's just an absolute piece of shit and I'm glad he's in jail. I really do wish we could move to a "better" neighborhood, especially for my son's sake, but that's probably not in the cards anytime soon. Glad to hear you've found somewhere you feel safe, that feeling has been harder and harder to come by recently. Thanks to both of you for good wishes concerning the band. I'm prepping to (hopefully) step in for their release show, and then we'll see how new material goes. I love the songs of theirs I've been learning, and I look at that as paying my dues; they're skilled writers and solid players with some great ideas. I hope it works out, will definitely post if there are any positive developments.

Welcome to MF. Feel free to start a thread for your own stuff here: https://www.metalforum.com/forum/156-promote-yourself/ Promo posts elsewhere (including here) are treated as spam. Get involved, have some conversations, hope you enjoy the place.