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DragonForce - "Warp Speed Warriors"

I'm a couple of days late on this one, but my favorite power metal band has never disappointed me, so I cannot wait to dive into the brand new album today.  This has been the longest gap between releases of their career - including the time when they changed singers.  The pandemic set them back for sure, but finally, the new slab of majestic melody and speed has arrived! 

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Searching With My Good Eye Closed and Room A Thousand Years Wide are my two favorite tunes on Badmotorfinger. I probably like the B side better than the A side all things considered.

Down On The Upside is the one Soundgarden album I can't make it through. Too many low points. Maybe it's the lingering flavor of disappointment from 25 years ago or whenever it came out. A handful of songs I like, but the rest is a slog. No idea why I like King Animal better, but I do.

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5 hours ago, Nasty_Cabbage said:

Ah. This one's pretty easy as it's about how our brains process music. A musical phrase "resolves" usually when it ends on a note that more or less demarks it's conclusion as a single musical statement within the song like a single sentence in grammar. So if you were to take Twinkle twinkle little star / How I wonder what you are, the resolution is the note that the word "Are" is sung over. Note we're going one syllable per beat. Line one line goes up three times in a row so: twinkle/up twinkle/up little/up, star/middle, and the second line goes down how I/down wonder/down what you/down are/down, with the fourth down breaking pattern from the first line and resolving the phrase (and for what it's worth I wasn't choosing a children's song as some sort of taunt. It's just a melody everybody knows). Of course it's music so there's all manner of complications that can and will come into play, but that's the basic idea. It's also possible to create songs without neatly resolving melodies like Nina Simone's rendition of Langston Hughe's poem Strange Fruit.

Note that the piano behind Ms. Simone here begins with a relatively simple four chord series that moves and shifts as the song goes on because it needs to be malleable and not static or neatly timed out to use the exact cadence the poem necessitates.

I hope that helps some. The way human pattern recognition works, whether we like it or not, is moment to moment, and a big part of our enjoyment of music is following this kind of thing (often subconsciously) with it's surprises and it's predictability going hand in hand. I also think you're perfectly fine enjoying music on a much less analytical and much more visceral level. Bringing the music nomenclature into it just helps me with articulating some of this stuff a little more exactly. I don't need anybody to think that I'm insulting them by throwing that kind of language around. It's really more for my benefit than anyone else's.

No one would ever think you were insulting them Cabbarella. We have quite a few smart people here and musicians who actually understand these technical terms. I'm not among that group, so I do appreciate you making the effort to dumb it down for me. Yes that made sense. Still don't fully understand your explanation about the black metal vibes you were getting from the minor chords on that black/death album the other evening though. Tbh as a non musician your explanation was still a good distance over my head. I've never attempted to dissect riffs in such a technical manner before. I don't really know anything about keys and modes and steps and all that technical stuff. I just separate riffs into 2 main categories: the ones I like, and the ones I don't.

As a non musician I do enjoy the freedom to experience music on a purely visceral and non anytical level. It's all about the feelings music inspires in me. I will often disengage my conscious brain and just let my lizard brain take over so I can just feel the music on a primal gut level. I'm a metalhead simply because that's what gives me the most desirable feelings. The more extreme the metal, the more intense the sensations. That's why I tend to gravitate towards the farthest ends of the spectrum. There are plenty of exceptions of course, but I generally either want extreme savagely filthy brutal stuff to rip my face off, or I'll go for really quiet mellow but often quite bleak and depressing non metal stuff with a lot of emotion. Music in between those extremes that can't stir up those intense feelings often just gets passed over and ignored. 

But back to the other thing again, to me anyway, black metal is more of an idea or a feeling that you recognize when it hits you. It's not a strict musical style with hard and fast rules because there are multiple different styles of music that can all legitimately be considered black metal. So many people seem to get hung up on the 2nd wave Norwegian styles and things like tremolo riffs and think that's what black metal has to sound like, without exception. That's just wrong. Other genres can be much easier to define though, thrash for instance is a musical style with a certain kind of riffing. A piece of music either has thrash riffs or it doesn't, there's less interpretation required, it's pretty straightforward to determine what's thrash and what's not. Black metal though provides endless room for interpretation, discussion and debate which I very much enjoy. 

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3 hours ago, navybsn said:

Non-skipper albums for me:

Sad Wings

NOTB

Piece of Mind

Seventh Son

 

 

That's just wild. Not that there could ever be any right or wrong opinions for these things, so I'm not knocking you dude 'cause it's all totally subjective. We all like what we like, fuck what anyone else thinks about it. But just for shits & giggles....

Sad Wings to me is a total loss, nothing of any interest at all to me on that one, except I guess the Ripper's kinda cool.

NotB is a little better, I liked 3 (Children, Hills, Hallowed) or nearly half of the 8 songs on offer. Title track is ruined for me by the silly lyrics.

Piece of Mind was one of those side 1 only albums, all 4 killer tracks on side 1 with only the one lone song of any value to me on side 2, the Trooper. So that's 5 out of 9.

I've never heard 7th Son so I can't even say.

Killers was always my favorite Maiden album, but even that one, setting aside the intro there were 10 tracks and I liked 6 of them. Drifter and the title track were my favorites. 

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53 minutes ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

That's just wild. Not that there could ever be any right or wrong opinions for these things, so I'm not knocking you dude 'cause it's all totally subjective. We all like what we like, fuck what anyone else thinks about it. But just for shits & giggles....

Sad Wings to me is a total loss, nothing of any interest at all to me on that one, except I guess the Ripper's kinda cool.

NotB is a little better, I liked 3 (Children, Hills, Hallowed) or nearly half of the 8 songs on offer. Title track is ruined for me by the silly lyrics.

Piece of Mind was one of those side 1 only albums, all 4 killer tracks on side 1 with only the one lone song of any value to me on side 2, the Trooper. So that's 5 out of 9.

I've never heard 7th Son so I can't even say.

Killers was always my favorite Maiden album, but even that one, setting aside the intro there were 10 tracks and I liked 6 of them. Drifter and the title track were my favorites. 

As it goes - opinions are like assholes, everyone has a shitty one...

Most of what I would consider "perfect" or "unskippable" I'm sure would fall out of your wheelhouse and most likely the opposite is true. NBD. Fortunately, we both passed the metalhead certification test years ago.

Enslaved - Mardraum

 

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23 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

Saturday AND Sunday posts from Johnny Blade?!? To what do we owe the pleasure of your weekend company sir? Has your wife left you? Or maybe she just left you alone with the daughter to go visit family, or she went out shopping with the girls and they stopped off for wine spritzers or lattes or something?

On Saturday my flatmates were watching rugby. I set up a new audio interface and switched to Windows 11 to solve some problems it was having. Finally started working. I then went to a gig in the evening, but not quite worth reporting. A local band Verminthrone, (The Cull | Verminthrone (bandcamp.com)) which sounds like it would be black metal, but closer to Pantera. Meat and potatoes. Decent. The opening band was Electric Wizard worship (Industrial Nightmare | Voidlurker (bandcamp.com)) but just a little too simple for me. The guitarist lost his pick before the last song and played with a credit card. You couldn't tell the difference. My favourite part was the knob twiddling guitar effects feedback over drum and bass that they finished with. That was pretty cool.

Sunday was fairly uneventful. Played mini-golf. Point being, I found occasion to write something on this here forums.

Oh, big name drop, on Friday night I had quite a long chat with Karl Sanders from Nile. It was like we'd been buddies forever. Nice bloke.

 

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3 hours ago, GoatmasterGeneral said:

 

 

NotB is a little better, I liked 3 (Children, Hills, Hallowed) or nearly half of the 8 songs on offer. Title track is ruined for me by the silly lyrics.

Piece of Mind was one of those side 1 only albums, all 4 killer tracks on side 1 with only the one lone song of any value to me on side 2, the Trooper. So that's 5 out of 9.

I've never heard 7th Son so I can't even say.

Killers was always my favorite Maiden album, but even that one, setting aside the intro there were 10 tracks and I liked 6 of them. Drifter and the title track were my favorites. 

I was never a fan of DiAnno so I'd dump him before dumping songs. But here's a list no one asked for.

IM I would dump Transylvania, Running Free and Remember Tomorrow

Killers I'd dump the instrumentals, Prodigal Son and Another Life

NOTB  I could happily get rid of Gangland, The Prisoner and Run To The Hills (although the film clip for RTTH is fun and a bit goofy).

POM I'd dump Still Life, Sun And Steel and To Tame A Land.

Powerslave I'd get rid of Losfer Words and The Duelists

SWIT I'd dump DejaVu and Heaven Can Wait

7th Son I'd probably keep all.

After that it would take some thinking.

While I said yesterday that some times the songs I'd take off albums changes depending on my mood at the time those Maiden songs are nearly always songs I skip or tune out when they come on. With songs like Running Free, Run To The Hills and Heaven Can Wait it's a case of over play. They might be well written songs, catchy or someone elses favourite but they are songs I got sick of quickly.

 

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NP: Fabricant - Drudge to the Thicket

▶︎ Drudge To The Thicket | FABRICANT | Fabricant (bandcamp.com)

a3470865956_10.jpg

I'm going to be kind of a dick here and call attention away from that striking cover art for a moment to their band photo on MA

3540317471_photo.jpg?3808

Why? Why would you include that? Is Weird Al going through a beatnick phase? Never mind those two poorly disguised cenobites behind him. Was this taken in a church basement? Is the body of a high school senior who was about to have his yearbook photo taken splayed about in a half eaten bloody puddle behind that screen. Just please please tell me Weird Al Beatnovick sounds exactly as I imagine he does. Like listening to Steven Wilson talk through a word problem in an artsy and all too self serious whisper. He has to sound that way. This is like an entire David Lynch film in one photo.

The music's good by the way. They've got a cool way of gluing riffs together that sort of tumbles and lurches along unpredictably.

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6 hours ago, JonoBlade said:

On Saturday my flatmates were watching rugby. I set up a new audio interface and switched to Windows 11 to solve some problems it was having. Finally started working. I then went to a gig in the evening, but not quite worth reporting. A local band Verminthrone, (The Cull | Verminthrone (bandcamp.com)) which sounds like it would be black metal, but closer to Pantera. Meat and potatoes. Decent. The opening band was Electric Wizard worship (Industrial Nightmare | Voidlurker (bandcamp.com)) but just a little too simple for me. The guitarist lost his pick before the last song and played with a credit card. You couldn't tell the difference. My favourite part was the knob twiddling guitar effects feedback over drum and bass that they finished with. That was pretty cool.

Sunday was fairly uneventful. Played mini-golf. Point being, I found occasion to write something on this here forums.

Oh, big name drop, on Friday night I had quite a long chat with Karl Sanders from Nile. It was like we'd been buddies forever. Nice bloke.

 

I saw your comparison of Verminthrone as being similar to PanterA, and that's all I needed to hear!  Checked them out immediately and I now have "The Cull" in my library.  Fantastic album with sick, heavy groove.  Doesn't get better than that for me!  I also hear some similarities to one of my top 5 bands of all time - the mighty Crowbar!

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8 hours ago, JamesT said:

I saw your comparison of Verminthrone as being similar to PanterA, and that's all I needed to hear!  Checked them out immediately and I now have "The Cull" in my library.  Fantastic album with sick, heavy groove.  Doesn't get better than that for me!  I also hear some similarities to one of my top 5 bands of all time - the mighty Crowbar!

Oof. You're gonna hate me (as if, you are incapable of hate in your heart), that Crowbar played at the same local pub where I saw Verminthrone last Monday and I didn't go! I was keen to see the local opening band Abraxian but, since I don't know Crowbar at all, the ticket price was just a little too much to be worth it.

Kind of regret it, but I'll get over it.

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1 hour ago, JonoBlade said:

Oof. You're gonna hate me (as if, you are incapable of hate in your heart), that Crowbar played at the same local pub where I saw Verminthrone last Monday and I didn't go! I was keen to see the local opening band Abraxian but, since I don't know Crowbar at all, the ticket price was just a little too much to be worth it.

Kind of regret it, but I'll get over it.

Crowbar’s particular blend of sludge may not appeal anyway, but damn kind of jealous that you even had the choice to see them or not, metal shows a few and far between in my neck of the woods, and quite often those that do make. It are certainly not worth attending.

 

Crowbar - Time Heals Nothing

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