I'll try to get this one going again. It's probably going to be a lot easier now to listen to this stuff on lots of different moments. A few weeks ago we started a subscription on Apple Music. I spent several weeks filling my library with everything I own, I (kinda) like or am interested in, which mostly meant complete discographies of bands I enjoy or like to listen to now and then. This resulted in me adding 5700 albums one by one in a few weeks time.
Anyway, with such a library always at hand while having my iPhone and WiFi available, which is quite often of course, it's easier to dig through my list of essentials. Continuing with letter E.....
Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse + Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk
To me this is the right balance between dark/aggressive and still having songs that you can actually follow. I like the prominent place of the keyboards. Feel like those scary keyboard sounds from B-horror-movies.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
I suck at names of subgenres. So this is called "sludge"? Influenced by doom I guess? A heard a lot of Black Sabbath influences here. Musically I liked it quite a lot. Not a big fan of the vocals though.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
This is a well known name for me, but I actually never really listened to them. Part of it might be because of the silly name. Sounds to me like some stupid party metal band, but it's actually some very decent metal. I've listened to some random other songs from their discography as well and it was really clear to me how inconsistent the quality they delivered is. A few weeks ago I bought my first F&J album, Blood in the Water, and that one is actually pretty good, so it's nice to see they still got it in them after so many years.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
St. Gloede wrote: ↑April 26th, 2021, 1:50 pm
I'm not a fan of metal, but I do like hard rock and the relatively short-lived predecessor to heavy metal - Heavy Pysch.
A few recommendations (1 per band):
Flower Travellin' Band - Satori (1971)
Just listened to this, but not till the end. Sorry, couldn't make it. The opening sound was annoying. When it started after that opening sound I got interested. But the guitar sound really got on my nerves very quickly. Not something I enjoy listening to. Removed from my Apple library......
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Surely a lot more original than the band in the previous post........ however, industrial never really got to me. I gave up after about four songs.
Is there another album by them I should check out? Or are chances high I won't like any of them?
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Okay, this was easy. Of course I already knew Gojira and I already loved them. I started listening to them from The Way Of All Flesh and bought and loved all their albums since. I just never looked back at their earlier work. This album fits in line with the rest of their stuff, so I liked it from the first notes.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Your post only included stuff I never heard of before, which is nice so I could get into it completely blank. As said above The Flower Travelin' Band wasn't a success. Fortunately, The Groundhogs was a lot better. The songs feel very natural, as if they had some rough ideas for the songs and jammed a lot around those ideas, but without getting boring.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
I can see how this might have been influential at the time, but listening to this almost 40 years later hasn't got the impact it had back then. And to be honest, it doesn't really sound that unique to me for that period. The first two songs sound like a dark version of Mötorhead to me. I actually hardly heard the difference between those two songs. Same pace. The third song was a lot slower, more like doom, bits of Black Sabbath, except for the singing.
Interesting to hear once, but not enough to keep this in my library. With such little output it's also not really worth it to dive into this band. I'd rather explore Celtic Frost some more.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Your post only included stuff I never heard of before, which is nice so I could get into it completely blank. As said above The Flower Travelin' Band wasn't a success. Fortunately, The Groundhogs was a lot better. The songs feel very natural, as if they had some rough ideas for the songs and jammed a lot around those ideas, but without getting boring.
Copy-paste my comment on Gamma Ray a few posts above. Although this is slightly better. The songs stick in my head a little better.
I already listened to some Helloween before, but not much. I think I once bought a copy of Better Than Raw on a flee market and later sold it on another flee market.
Listening to this for two albums in a row is a bit boring, because after a while you've heard it all. It's fun music though if it comes along when listening on shuffle.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Listening to High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings (2005) now. I don't remember how this got on my list to listen to. I don't know the band's name. This is not "classic" or "influential" if you aks me. Nobody here recommended it. First few songs don't seem that special, so I think I'm skipping the rest. Remind me if there's a reason for me to listen to this.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Is this their most important album? It's okay. I kinda like Iced Earth now and then. I only own "The Glorious Burden", which I prefer over this one actually.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
I'd like to listen to death metal more often. I often feel that way, but most of the time I don't know where to start. I've got some death metal albums in my CD collection, but when I listen to other albums by those bands I don't feel like those albums will add anything new to my collection. Old school death metal is a genre in which I don't hear enough difference between acts and not enough originality.
I don't think I listened to Incantation before and I must say I feel the same way as described above. Yeah, I like it, but it doesn't really stick.
If anyone has some recommendations for death metal bands that stand out more among the crowd, feel free to give me some.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Not a complete blind spot of course, but I have never listened enough to their discography. I've got The Number of the Beast on vinyl and a best of on CD. I must admit I boycotted the rest a bit on purpose. The Iron Maiden fans I met in my life were always the kind of people I complained about recently in the complaint lounge, never listening to anything new, but keep pretending metal in the past was the best. Now, I don't want to deny their status in metal history, but I do think some people exaggerate it a lot.
So I listened to their debut from 1980. The first few songs were not that interesting to be honest. Side B was better, especially Strange World. Funny thing was my first thoughts on the first song: "I don't even recognize Bruce Dickinson."
Took me a while to realize Bruce wasn't the lead singer yet back then.
Then I put on Powerslave. Now that one really deserves its classic status! Every song works. The riffs on this are amazing and Bruce Dickinson instead of Paul Di'Anno made a huge difference. So when this album was over, I didn't have enough Iron Maiden yet, so I put on their entire discography on shuffle. I didn't keep track of which albums passed along, but the difference in quality between the songs was pretty big. A few weeks ago I listened to their most recent album and although I heard some nice things there, overall I found it a bit weak.
When I first started getting into metal, Bruce wasn't with Iron Maiden. It was a Blaze Bayley period and every time I read about Iron Maiden back then, it was about complaints about the singing quality, or the lack thereof, of Blaze. So just to put things in perspective, I put on Virtual XI. The opening song is pretty good actually, but indeed you're wishing a change of vocals. Many of the songs on this album would have benefitted a lot with Bruce on vocals (but some songs wouldn't have....).
So which of their albums should I listened to completely as well? Seventh Son of a Seventh Son?
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Going through some Judas Priest. Not entirely unknown to me, but haven't listened to a lot of them. Listened to Painkiller a few times, which is pretty awesome. Going through older stuff now. First one on my list was Sad Wings of Destiny, but strangely enough it isn't on Apple Music, so I have to listen to that one some other way.
Stained Class
Surprised to notice how well I already knew the opening song Exciter. Probably from a cover by someone else, but I can't remember which band. Anyway, since only really knowing Painkiller from 1990 it's interesting to go back to 1978. It's a lot less metal than Painkiller, it struck me how much this sounds like Deep Purple. That riff with the high vocals..... It's easy though to imagine having a more aggressive version to make the step from rock to metal. I just took a look at a live version of Exciter from this century and I don't really imagine Deep Purple playing that way.
Anyway, fun stuff. Will certainly listened to this again.
Unleashed in the East
A live album from the same period.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Sin After Sin, which preceded Stained Class, was actually produced by Deep Purple's bassist. I think in that one the similarities to Purple and other earlier hard rock bands are more obvious.
Anyway, I love Priest, their output from Sad Wings of Destiny to Defenders of the Faith is really solid (with the possible exception of Point of Entry). And yeah, Painkiller is good too.
The problem is that he specifically asked for older metal so there is a bias in this thread. I can link some of the newer metal that I think really shined.
I'll spoiler the rest, but this is easily one of the greatest metal albums ever made so I'll leave that out here. Inspired by psychedelic rock, and krautrock, especially Can.
Sure, not saying there's not some great stuff released these days, but essentially all of these bands have been influenced by the "pioneers" in one way or the other so there's no denying that they have had massive influence on the new bands.
Thanks for those videos, some interesting stuff for sure, especially Oranssi Pazuzu, first time I hear about them, need to check them out, - most of the others are a bit too heavy/dark for my tastes but I am quite open minded and always ready to listen to new things. I just found Joachim's comment about old metal a bit funny and ironic
bal3x wrote: ↑January 18th, 2022, 2:01 pm
Sure, not saying there's not some great stuff released these days, but essentially all of these bands have been influenced by the "pioneers" in one way or the other so there's no denying that they have had massive influence on the new bands.
Thanks for those videos, some interesting stuff for sure, especially Oranssi Pazuzu, first time I hear about them, need to check them out, - most of the others are a bit too heavy/dark for my tastes but I am quite open minded and always ready to listen to new things. I just found Joachim's comment about old metal a bit funny and ironic
Which comment? I made several......
Sure there's no denying that the pioneers influenced later bands a lot. That goes without saying. Doesn't mean classic metal was better though. I hear lots of things that I can understand having a major impact back then, but sound rather simplistic and unoriginal if you listen to it nowadays. So I certainly don't agree with you that metal was better in the old days.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
I don't think pioneers are better just because they influenced the newer stuff, but I really prefer the older stuff. I don't really care for most post-2000s metal at all (though I can't say I am that well versed about it). I listened to lot of prog metal in high school, but now that stuff just feels really boring.
Anyway, joachim's clearly wrong about BÖC's Fire of Unknown Origin. That's a great hard rock album. And I don't think it's that different from their seventies stuff, clearly it's the same band. Just more synth.
Yeah, well, no point arguing about this, I guess everyone is entitled to their own opinions and all of this is rather subjective anyway Let's just enjoy what we enjoy. Generally I prefer the older stuff as well, but as I said I'm always ready to listen to new stuff so I'm certainly not ignoring it even though I must say I find myself listening to the older stuff more. Not sure what joachim is referring to when speaking about "simplistic and unoriginal" - surely bands like Judas Priest were neither of those in the early days, they actually released some of the most original and complex work in their initial period (and I'm a big fan of the band, I enjoy most of their output including Ram it Down lol), those were more prog-oriented even. Iron Maiden I can understand that their debut album is not too complex or original listening to it today, their later work is much better for sure. But I've never been a huge fan of Maiden anyway
Actually I think I've grown to like Di'Anno's Maiden more than Dickinson's. Di'Anno's more punk, and I prefer punk to the direction that Maiden took after the first two albums. Also, not a huge fan of Dickinson's voice, I've begun to like it less and less the older I get. Not that the best Dickinson albums are bad or anything.
EDIT:Of course they're a bit hard to compare, given that Maiden made two albums with Di'Anno and well, not bothering to check how many they have now made with Dickinson. And I remember the song-writing on the early albums is a bit uneven, but songs like Wratchild and Killers are just great.
Yeah, it's an interesting opinion, I think The Killers is actually a very solid effort, some of the songs are really nice. And actually Dickinson's voice is probably what prevents me from being a fan of the band, not a fan of those vocals as well. Technically they are very proficient though, Powerslave is still probably their best work.
I'm more familiar with later work by Katatonia. I love their latest album City Burials, but that's completely different from this early work. Just like Opeth they went from more extreme forms of metal with grunts to the proggy soft side of the spectrum with smooth vocals. Where early Opeth also got to me, this one by Katatonia is merely okay, maybe not proggy enough for me.
Kiss - Alive!
I never really listened to Kiss before. I always thought they looked really silly. Glamrock or glamour rock 'n' roll or whatever isn't really my thing. I always feel they compensate the lack of interesting music with their show. Probably a lot of fun to see this on stage, but just listening to this on headphones leaves me rather cold.
Kreator - Endless Pain
Sounds exactly as I expected. Classic trash. I've got one of their albums, the much more recent Phantom Antichrist, but never listened to their early work. Deserves its place in my AM-library, because I really enjoy trash now and then. This album doesn't feel dated at all.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
I'd be interested to know your opinion about Kreator's Coma of Souls album, not a huge fan of the band, but that album has always seemed very solid to me.
Legendary and influential. Never listened a lot to stoner at all to be honest. Not much sticks out for me. This album is pretty cool though. But after one listen...... nothing sticks out. Need to listen to this again.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Not really classic, it's from 2009, but I came across this as something progfans should absolutely listen to and I never heard of this album before. I think I need to listen to this more often, so I saved it in my listen-playlist. It's rather varied. Some parts are really proggy, others are almost poppy, like the softer parts of mainstream metalcore where the screamer shuts up and the clean vocals give you some air. But then the next song Karnivool surprises me with some rhythms that remind me of The Mars Volta. And then next I hear Soen and Caligula's Horse mixed together. Definitely good references, so I'm digging this.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
An easy one, because I already knew I like Lamb of God. Started listening to them from Sacrement (2006). Also got Wrath and Resolution in my collection. Next one felt like more of the same so I skipped it, because it didn't add much new in my collection. Never listened to earlier stuff.
As the Palaces Burn is a fine album. It's not as recognizable LoG-sound as with Wrath, partly because it doesn't have to in-your-face production as I'm used to with them. Or maybe it was a the lack of good sound of my headphones. Not sure. And the songs feel a bit as if they hadn't fully found their identity yet.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Been a while since I listened to classics. Did a lot of catching up on more recent stuff. Continuing now with this project.
Kreator - Coma of Souls
Hard for me to imagine how influential this was back then and how mindblowing it sounded. I think nowadays this sounds like decent thrash metal, but nothing mindblowing. When I listen to Slayer in those early days, I'm feeling a lot more vibes.
Still fun enough to listen to more often.
Mastodon - Leviathan
Now as old as most of the stuff in this topic, but old enough to qualify for something important that I somehow missed back then. I already knew I really liked Mastodon before going into this one. I started listening to them one album later (Blood Mountain, 2006), but never took the time to listen to their previous stuff. It's really recognizable as Mastodon. Some songs are a lot heavier though than their later stuff. Faster riffs, but also with the same recognizable Mastodon grooves. Really digging it.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Not really my thing. I prefer more variation in black metal. Those drums going taktaktaktaktaktaktaktak constantly are getting boring very soon for me.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
Torgo wrote: ↑July 12th, 2022, 2:35 pm
That's great, because you can clear Panzer Division Marduk while you're already at M
Not sure why Marduk wasn't on my list yet. I just added Panzer to the playlist. I have listened to that one in the past, though I hardly remember is. It was once when it just came out.
ICM-profile
Fergenaprido: "I find your OCD to be adorable, J"
