Avant-Garde Metal

[Iceni]

I was looking over my old responses here and they're quite funny...now that I have an Unexpect shirt. One thing I notice about a number of avant-garde bands is their extended acoustic or keyboard passages. These would be fine except that the only band I've ever heard to actually use long melodic interludes that didn't bore me to death is Forest Stream. Fleurety got far too mild for me on many occasions - I'd hoped more of their music would have been like Face In A Fever. Suspyre (early work, their recent stuff is great) and Opeth have the same problem in my opinion. Weirdly, these passages tend to get very monotonous, suggesting almost the exact opposite of avant-garde - laziness.

[BlutAusNerd]

Re: Avant-Garde Metal

I was looking over my old responses here and they're quite funny...now that I have an Unexpect shirt. One thing I notice about a number of avant-garde bands is their extended acoustic or keyboard passages. These would be fine except that the only band I've ever heard to actually use long melodic interludes that didn't bore me to death is Forest Stream. Fleurety got far too mild for me on many occasions - I'd hoped more of their music would have been like Face In A Fever. Suspyre (early work, their recent stuff is great) and Opeth have the same problem in my opinion. Weirdly, these passages tend to get very monotonous, suggesting almost the exact opposite of avant-garde - laziness.

I obviously disagree, but I still tend to favor more compact sounding avant-garde bands that integrate their avant-garde tendencies seamlessly with metal, as opposed to just transitioning to unrelated passages at intervals that seem arbitrary. While Fleurety may not count as such, they do still transition well into passages that fit IMO, and Opeth do this well also, despite not being avant-garde. Sent from my HTC PH39100 using Tapatalk 2

[Iceni]

I obviously disagree' date=' but I still tend to favor more compact sounding avant-garde bands that integrate their avant-garde tendencies seamlessly with metal, as opposed to just transitioning to unrelated passages at intervals that seem arbitrary.[/quote'] The ultimate in completely arbitrary music has got to be Azure Emote. They literally just put in whatever they want... I do agree that Opeth aren't avant-garde, but I confess to finding their acoustic interludes pretty boring. Fleurety might make good passages that transition well, but they still struck me as being a bit mild. I liked it when they went really harsh because they sounded fairly weird. What d'you think of MoRT, by the way? I've heard that even strong Blut Aus Nord fans didn't always care for it all that much. (On a related note, I keep being drawn back to them even though they're black metal and I like a fair amount of their material. A lot of it would be great soundtrack music.)

[BlutAusNerd]

The ultimate in completely arbitrary music has got to be Azure Emote. They literally just put in whatever they want... I do agree that Opeth aren't avant-garde, but I confess to finding their acoustic interludes pretty boring. Fleurety might make good passages that transition well, but they still struck me as being a bit mild. I liked it when they went really harsh because they sounded fairly weird. What d'you think of MoRT, by the way? I've heard that even strong Blut Aus Nord fans didn't always care for it all that much. (On a related note, I keep being drawn back to them even though they're black metal and I like a fair amount of their material. A lot of it would be great soundtrack music.)

I guess Opeth's acoustic bits just don't work for you, but I find them interesting with or without the transitions to and from their harsh passages. Their music would definitely not be the same without them, and I think that I wouldn't like them as well as I do without the acoustic guitars and clean vocals. MoRT is awesome, it's by Blut Aus Nord, so that's not really a surprise. A lot of people seem to hate it mostly because it isn't really a black metal album, more of an ambient album by a twisted and avant-garde black metal band. It's creepy as hell, really crawling and convoluted atmosphere that makes me think of sludgy streets and junkies overdosing in alleyways. The Work Which Transforms God really started them down that path of the more "urban" type of atmosphere, but then with Memoria Vetusta II they went back to a more natural/metaphysical feel. Black metal or not, Blut Aus Nord can do know wrong, you should definitely check them out further.

[Iceni]

Black metal or not' date=' Blut Aus Nord can do know wrong, you should definitely check them out further.[/quote'] The Procession of Dead Clowns is a strange song. I like the melody and riff, but it just repeats it for ten minutes. Overall, it's a great track for background music but I'm not quite sure I'd want to give it my undivided attention like I would an Unexpect song. I do remember liking These Blessed Frozen Cells because it sounded pretty doomy last I remember.

[BlutAusNerd]

The Procession of Dead Clowns is a strange song. I like the melody and riff' date=' but it just repeats it for ten minutes. Overall, it's a great track for background music but I'm not quite sure I'd want to give it my undivided attention like I would an Unexpect song. I do remember liking These Blessed Frozen Cells because it sounded pretty doomy last I remember.[/quote'] It's the last song on The Work Which Transforms God, and definitely deserves its place there. I could see it maybe being a bit boring if you listen to it out of context of the rest of the album, but it really ties the end together nicely, and works best when you can just turn up the volume and sink into it. It's also the song that sounds the most like Godflesh on that album, and influence that they started really exploring there with excellent results.

[Iceni]

I'm listening to Devin Townsend's audio commentary on Epicloud, which is just him commenting on things throughout the album. FLbJ72wgXcE It's actually a much heavier album than I gave it credit for, it has a lot of great moments. The overall tone is interesting; Townsend said that the album in general was supposed to cover subjects like love that don't really get a lot of coverage in metal. I'm really enjoying this; Townsend is hilarious and the album goes through such heights and depth. Very enjoyable.

[BlutAusNerd]

Yeah, Heavy Devy sounds like a crazy guy, but seems like a mellow dude in person. I've never met him, but from what I've seen when he's not playing, you can tell he gets all that stuff out on stage and just chills after. I don't have Epicloud, I think the last album I bought of his was Ziltoid: The Omniscient, but I love all of his stuff that I've heard, with SYL and otherwise. My favorites are probably SYL's City and DTB's Physicist or Ziltoid, but Synchestra was good too.

[Iceni]

I got a bit of addicted and I liked some of the elements. One problem I had was that his music seemed a bit too formulaic and fell victim to the same kind of weaknesses that Meshuggah does. He will come up with a given interesting riff and then repeat it and repeat it and repeat it until it doesn't seem too awesome. Hyperdrive was a good way of compensating for this because it had enough elements that were memorable that it wasn't a problem for them to be repeated. I love how he mocks the mellow nature of Canadians.

[extrememetal1999]

have anybody ever heard of the Avant Garde band maudlin of the Well if not, you should check them out they are really good

[Midi]

have anybody ever heard of the Avant Garde band maudlin of the Well if not' date=' you should check them out they are really good[/quote'] I've heard several of their works, but they never impressed me.

[deathstorm]

Whould meshuggah be avant grade. I know. Some people list them as that

[FatherAlabaster]

Whould meshuggah be avant grade. I know. Some people list them as that

I think their early albums were groundbreaking, and "ahead of the curve" in that a lot of bands imitated them; so in that sense I'd say yes. But as much as I love them, I feel like they've been largely spinning their wheels for the past ten-plus years. Their sound has turned into a shtick, and it's getting old.

[deathstorm]

Thanks alabaster

[Iceni]

have anybody ever heard of the Avant Garde band maudlin of the Well if not' date=' you should check them out they are really good[/quote'] I remember them being a little too mellow but maybe I'll give them another try.

[RelentlessOblivion]

I don't suppose we can call Portal Avant-Garde? I still can't make any sense from their music.

[BlutAusNerd]

I don't suppose we can call Portal Avant-Garde? I still can't make any sense from their music.

I would, absolutely.

[RelentlessOblivion]

They're a real headfuck of a band, Outre is a fantastic album but I couldn't listen to it on a regular basis.

[deathstorm]

Murph I got a get that cd

[Os Abysmi Vel Daath]

They're a real headfuck of a band' date=' Outre is a fantastic album but I couldn't listen to it on a regular basis.[/quote'] I haven't listened to them yet. I've heard quite a lot about them though.

[RelentlessOblivion]

Their nearest comparison would be Axis Of Perdition but Portal are even weirder.

[Midi]

Their nearest comparison would be Axis Of Perdition but Portal are even weirder.

Impetuous Ritual.

[RelentlessOblivion]

I've read reviews comparing them to AoP so went with that.

[deathstorm]

Murph I just brought outré by portal

[FatherAlabaster]

I really couldn't get into Axis Of Perdition, it didn't seem like there was anything musically interesting about it. I have enough harsh noise to deal with as it is.