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The Official Gothic Metal Recommendations Thread


RelentlessOblivion

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Re: some good gothic metal bands? Amorphis: Am Universum Silent Waters Elis: Dark Clouds In A Perfect Sky Entwine: The Treasures Within Hearts Tristania: Ashes Illumination Crematory: Revolution Klagebilder Moonspell: Irreligious The Butterfly Effect Darkness And Hope Memorial Under Satanae Night Eternal Sentenced: Down Crimson The Cold White Light Mortal Love: I Have Lost... Forever Will Be Gone Poisonblack: Escapexstacy Lust Stained Despair Xandria: Kill The Sun Flowing Tears: Serpentine Serinia: Nine Destinies And A Downfall The 13th Floor Theatre of Tragedy: Storm These are good places to look for Gothic Metal.

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Re: some good gothic metal bands? NTNR and BlutAusNerd also recommended After Forever's and Theatre Of Tragedy's self-titled respective albums, and I liked material from both. Leaves Eyes is good too, a bit more folky but still very gothic. Midnattsol is in this vein as well. Edenbridge is very good too, a bit proggy. Delain is great, especially on the album 'April Rain'. Epica is awesome, but I wouldn't single any album out for spectacular strength. I need to go hear 'Requiem For The Indifferent' though. HB has great material, but it's very difficult to find (because they're so inconsistent), let alone buy.

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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

NTNR and BlutAusNerd also recommended After Forever's and Theatre Of Tragedy's self-titled respective albums, and I liked material from both. Leaves Eyes is good too, a bit more folky but still very gothic. Midnattsol is in this vein as well. Edenbridge is very good too, a bit proggy. Delain is great, especially on the album 'April Rain'. Epica is awesome, but I wouldn't single any album out for spectacular strength. I need to go hear 'Requiem For The Indifferent' though. HB has great material, but it's very difficult to find (because they're so inconsistent), let alone buy.
Theater of Tragedy didn't become Gothic until their third album 'Aegis' After Forever isn't Goth. They're Symphonic/Trad Epica isn't Goth. They're Symphonic/Trad Edenbridge isn't Goth. They're Symphonic/Trad (and/or Power) Damnit boy! How many times must we have this conversation?! :ugeek:
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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

Theater of Tragedy didn't become Gothic until their third album 'Aegis' After Forever isn't Goth. They're Symphonic/Trad Epica isn't Goth. They're Symphonic/Trad Edenbridge isn't Goth. They're Symphonic/Trad (and/or Power) Damnit boy! How many times must we have this conversation?! :ugeek:
Any band with female vocals is typically fair game for the gothic category as far as I'm concerned. :D Now, I'm not going to throw Doro, Battle Beast or Seven Kingdoms in there because it's pretty obvious they're not, but generally if the band does slower-tempo songs with keyboard, and with female vocals, I'm willing to consider them gothic. Hence my categorization of Epica as such. I will also disagree with your 'trad' designation. I think trad by definition requires the absence of keyboards. But seriously, you recommended After Forever along with Xandria, so that reinforced the concept. In the meantime I think BlutAusNerd characterized ToT as being doom/gothic, so I'm at least partially right.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

Any band with female vocals is typically fair game for the gothic category as far as I'm concerned. :D Now, I'm not going to throw Doro, Battle Beast or Seven Kingdoms in there because it's pretty obvious they're not, but generally if the band does slower-tempo songs with keyboard, and with female vocals, I'm willing to consider them gothic. Hence my categorization of Epica as such. I will also disagree with your 'trad' designation. I think trad by definition requires the absence of keyboards. But seriously, you recommended After Forever along with Xandria, so that reinforced the concept. In the meantime I think BlutAusNerd characterized ToT as being doom/gothic, so I'm at least partially right.
NTNR mostly disagrees with my definition of gothic metal, which is also the most commonly held definition. Still, there are two different varieties, bands like Moonspell, Tiamat, and Type O Negative that use riffs and vocals derived from the original goth rock bands (Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bauhaus, etc...) in their songs and just place them in a bit heavier setting, and then there are bands that evoke a gothic atmosphere through their romantic lyrics and songwriting, but the music is not directly derived from the original goth sound. It is obviously still influenced by it, using much of the same imagery, lyrical themes, and maintaining a very similar dreary atmosphere, and while I would obviously call that gothic metal I could see how there may be a little bit of contention to that claim, but that's similar to saying that Marduk isn't black metal because they don't sound immediately similar to Venom, though they were obviously influenced by them and have just evolved their music a few stages further down the line than Venom's more direct descendants like Bathory.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

Any band with female vocals is typically fair game for the gothic category as far as I'm concerned. :D Now, I'm not going to throw Doro, Battle Beast or Seven Kingdoms in there because it's pretty obvious they're not, but generally if the band does slower-tempo songs with keyboard, and with female vocals, I'm willing to consider them gothic. Hence my categorization of Epica as such. I will also disagree with your 'trad' designation. I think trad by definition requires the absence of keyboards. But seriously, you recommended After Forever along with Xandria, so that reinforced the concept. In the meantime I think BlutAusNerd characterized ToT as being doom/gothic, so I'm at least partially right.
If all female singers = gothic then Doro, Meanstreak and The Great Kat are gothic then? If I did mention After Forever as gothic, I obviously wasn't paying attention. Just because a band has keyboards and plays slower riffs doesn't make them goth either. If that were the case Dream Theater and Deep Purple would be goth, by your definition anyway. Trad can have keyboards, there are a lot of trad bands that have them in the background of their music anyway. If the band sounds like Sentenced (mid-period forward), Stolen Babies, Entwine then it's gothic.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands? Erm, NTNR, I thought that the general opinion was that there was no such think as a Symphonic/Trad was not a genre as to was too much variation between power/progressive/gothic symphonic bands :?: Anyway, my simple definition of gothic metal is it's dark yet lyrical atmophere, generated by beautiful lyrics and the counterpoint of high-pitch singing with low-pitch riffs and chord prgressions. I could try and be more specific, but I think that BlutAusNerd has already done a splendid job :) ! Iceni, I love your taste :twisted: ! I love April Rain as an album. On the subject of Delain (as Martijn Westerholt fell ill and had to leave this next band just before they became big), I would also like to recommend trying some later Within Temptation. The earlier albums are very folky, but The Heart of Everything is really, really worth a listen and I personally love The Unforgiving - though it does come with a health warning for those who are allegic to a perhaps slightly poppy sound :D !

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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

Erm, NTNR, I thought that the general opinion was that there was no such think as a Symphonic/Trad was not a genre as to was too much variation between power/progressive/gothic symphonic bands :?: Anyway, my simple definition of gothic metal is it's dark yet lyrical atmophere, generated by beautiful lyrics and the counterpoint of high-pitch singing with low-pitch riffs and chord prgressions. I could try and be more specific, but I think that BlutAusNerd has already done a splendid job :) ! Iceni, I love your taste :twisted: ! I love April Rain as an album. On the subject of Delain (as Martijn Westerholt fell ill and had to leave this next band just before they became big), I would also like to recommend trying some later Within Temptation. The earlier albums are very folky, but The Heart of Everything is really, really worth a listen and I personally love The Unforgiving - though it does come with a health warning for those who are allegic to a perhaps slightly poppy sound :D !
There's only one genre of Heavy Metal and that's Heavy Metal. There are many styles within it. Just because the archives don't have it listed doesn't mean it doesn't/can't exist. My former bass player was in a grindcore/ska band for christsake. There is symphonic trad and After Forever is prime example of this. They were never gothic. They were somewhat boring for a while before gaining focus. Within Temptation isn't gothic either. They started life as a Doom/Death band and then (sadly) got more symphonic. Their last album isn't Metal. It's modern rock. It rocks out loud but it's not Metal. The one before that was heavy evanesence worship. They're not Metal as you should know, they're not even gothic, they're just pop/rock at best.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

There's only one genre of Heavy Metal and that's Heavy Metal. There are many styles within it. Just because the archives don't have it listed doesn't mean it doesn't/can't exist. My former bass player was in a grindcore/ska band for christsake. There is symphonic trad and After Forever is prime example of this. They were never gothic. They were somewhat boring for a while before gaining focus. Within Temptation isn't gothic either. They started life as a Doom/Death band and then (sadly) got more symphonic. Their last album isn't Metal. It's modern rock. It rocks out loud but it's not Metal. The one before that was heavy evanesence worship. They're not Metal as you should know, they're not even gothic, they're just pop/rock at best.
They were never doom/death, I've heard their debut, and on that album through The Silent Force they were pretty gothic. Modern gothic rock/nu-metal was the style they adopted after that album, very Evanescence influenced as you pointed out, though I would say they started down that road upon signing to Roadrunner on The Heart of Everything.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

They were never doom/death, I've heard their debut, and on that album through The Silent Force they were pretty gothic. Modern gothic rock/nu-metal was the style they adopted after that album, very Evanescence influenced as you pointed out, though I would say they started down that road upon signing to Roadrunner on The Heart of Everything.
From what I recall of the first album it was doom/death. Again I've never considered them "true" gothic. They may have some 'isms' in their sound but they're/were just symphonic metal to me.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands? I have to violently diagree with the assertion that Within Temptation are like Evanessence (oh dear, I appear to be disagreeing with everybody today)! Evanessence (and I have heard them a fair amount) I feel are really quite lazy in their song writing, O.K. vocal melody and cockie-cutter chord progs and all very, very simple, letting potentially good songs become boring due to lack of work. Temptation are very original, and their musical skills and Sharon's voice are also of a much higher quality. The lyrical content too is entirely different. Boy, now I come to think about it, I can't find much similarity between them at all except that I suppose they are both gothic metal.

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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

If all female singers = gothic then Doro, Meanstreak and The Great Kat are gothic then? If I did mention After Forever as gothic, I obviously wasn't paying attention. Just because a band has keyboards and plays slower riffs doesn't make them goth either. If that were the case Dream Theater and Deep Purple would be goth, by your definition anyway. Trad can have keyboards, there are a lot of trad bands that have them in the background of their music anyway. If the band sounds like Sentenced (mid-period forward), Stolen Babies, Entwine then it's gothic.
In the very quote of mine that you've put up, I specifically say I'm leaving out Doro and the like... :| OK, so I do understand your claim with Deep Purple now. Still, I don't find After Forever or Epica particularly traditional. (Maybe BlutAusNerd recommended them...) I suppose you could call After Forever prog and maybe call Edenbridge prog/power. Maybe you can call Epica symphonic power metal but many of their songs are pretty plainly gothic in my opinion. By the same token I do put them above other gothic-sounding bands due to their greater emphasis on guitars. Still though, I suppose I'll have to listen to these early bands to get a sense of how this gothic stuff is supposed to sound...
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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

In the very quote of mine that you've put up, I specifically say I'm leaving out Doro and the like... :| OK, so I do understand your claim with Deep Purple now. Still, I don't find After Forever or Epica particularly traditional. (Maybe BlutAusNerd recommended them...) I suppose you could call After Forever prog and maybe call Edenbridge prog/power. Maybe you can call Epica symphonic power metal but many of their songs are pretty plainly gothic in my opinion. By the same token I do put them above other gothic-sounding bands due to their greater emphasis on guitars. Still though, I suppose I'll have to listen to these early bands to get a sense of how this gothic stuff is supposed to sound...
I wouldn't call AF prog at all. They're far too uninteresting for that. (Yes I like them but the guitar tones they had were just awful and didn't suit the music at all. Their music wasn't that progressive either.) Too many bands get lumped into the Gothic style when they aren't. Case in point the bands you're claiming to be. The bands I've mentioned are what Gothic Metal is. The style needs to stop being and dump for undefinable acts. Female vocalists and keyboards don't make a band Gothic.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands? All these sub genres confuse me, having said that most of the pigeonholing of bands does. How does it work???? Most of them, if not all, overlap, so generally no bands is this or that exclusively. Having said all that, I do like to have a general idea what a bands is going to be like before I have a listen. One of my favourite gothic metal bands is The Nephilim, no female or keyboards, may be they're not gothic metal after all.

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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

Actually, I do think I've got it now. Gothic and doom have a similar atmosphere sometimes, but gothic is usually faster and a bit more likely to have clean singing. The songs NTNR put up by Entwine, Sentenced and How Like A Winter cleared this up. (Although I noticed several similarities between How Like A Winter and Battlelore, such as the female vocals and the guitar) Delain, Edenbridge and Epica are more bombastic and in your face, so they don't fit the traditional gothic bill at any rate. Still though, I'm leery of making a 'symphonic metal' label to categorize these bands.
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Re: some good gothic metal bands? Well, the thing is that the general opinion was the Symphonic was too diverse to have its own catagory, so bands like Epica have to go somewhere, as they sure as hell aren't Power. I plump for goth due to the dark atmosphere and deep and heavy chord progressions. To answer Satan59, I think the point of pidgeonholing is partly to help guide discussions/future listening choices and partly because, in keeping with metal in general, it is a male dominated genre. Thus, unto the laws of metal came the edict of the hairy man, that pegs shall be forced into holes, mattering not neither how square be the peg nor round be the hole!

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Re: some good gothic metal bands?

Thus' date=' unto the laws of metal came the edict of the hairy man, that pegs shall be forced into holes, mattering not neither how square be the peg nor round be the hole![/quote'] So true. As Lemmy said. "There's only two types of music. Music you like and music you don't like."
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