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Off Topic forum currently named 'Squamous'This is the off-topic forum; please observe the no puns, politics & religion rule (use Circvs Maximvs for these topics).
For the EN World Metalheads. Introducing new bands.
New metal bands pop up like mushrooms in the rain, but from time to time some of them make it for the big. I realized there wasn't a thread that was dedicated to introducing metal bands that haven't yet made it, but are on the way to fame. So please, fellow metalheads, if you'd like to promote a band you've found about, and thought others might like, please do it here.
I'll start. From the promised land of metal, Finland, comes a new rising star Embassy of Silence, a band dedicated to making melodic metal with a twist of their own.
Thanks Danny. Yeah, I first considered posting about the band in the Metal School, but decided that if others want to introduce new good bands too, it would serve to have an own thread.
And to make it clear, I'm not part of the band. Though I am friend with the singer. But her voice is amazing so I thought others might enjoy knowing about it
Most of these aren't really 'new' bands but I thought they'd be stuff that any fan of fantasy and RPGs might enjoy. There's a brief explanation of the band and their style as well.
Tool- if you haven't heard of them you're probably living under a rock or in the depths of the Underdark. Suitably mysterious and heavy with ambiguously mystical sounding lyrics.
Dream Theater- virtuostic progressive metal with a flair for the epic.
Gwar- a bit boneheaded, and quite offensive at times, there's little better battle music than the album "Violence Has Arrived".
High On Fire- classified as "stoner metal" but this is a bit misleading. Riffs and drums that will crush skulls with a singer who sounds like Lemmy after gargling with battery acid.
Lair of the Minotaur- with an album called "War Metal Battle Master" and song titles straight out of D&D you can't get much heavier than this sludgey metal.
Electric Wizard- yet another sludge/doom metal band who smoked too much pot and played too much D&D.
The Sword- Black Sabbath style riffage with D&D style lyrics.
Aphex Twin- electronica. Try to find his "Selected Ambient Works" albums for some soft but menacing background music.
Ensiferum- Finnish Viking folk-metal. Sweet.
Amon Amarth- Swedish death/viking metal. Plus their name means "Mt. Doom".
Iron Maiden- classic epic metal with all kinds of literary references and medieval lyrics.
Iced Earth- basically a modern take on Iron Maiden (meaning faster and slicker). Lyrics tend to be more about myths, movie monsters, and history.
Angrydad - don't worry about old metal acts...I'm covering those over at metal school. (see my sig). Please feel free to read the past posts, I have a feeling you would enjoy them.
Blackrat - thanks for the new thread. Often we get derailed at the school house by talk of current acts, which are kind of contrary to our reason for running the school. Now we have a place to go for the new stuff.
T-foot -
Metal School Headmaster
Drummer
Singer
Lyricist
Engineer
Producer
"I may be unconscious, but at least I still look good!" - - Me (at the Halfling Musketeers game GenCon '06)
On one hand, taking away their weapons is a dead giveaway that they will need them. On the other hand, by the time conflict starts the players will already have opened the rulebooks and found the parts that deal with bare-handed combat, performing disarm moves, and using improvised weapons. Players may blunder through dialog with shocking ineptitude, forget the name of the country they are in, or get confused about which side they are on, but once it comes time to roll for initiative they all turn into Sun Tzu. - Shamus Young DM of the Rings
Gojira: French groovy death with sludge and doom and robot vocals and flying whales and environmentally friendly lyrics.
Deathspell Omega: French avant garde black metal. Think Gorguts meets Emperor.
Psycroptic: Good old fashioned brutal technical death metal from Aussieland.
Cult of Luna: Doom-Sludge meets post-rock, commonly called Post-Metal, except not the standard stuff.
Animosity: Deathcore except better. Animal went beyond the standard deathcore formula and came dangerously close to being a tech death album.
Ansur: Pink Floyd meets Emperor meets Between the Buried and Me except without the regular progressive baggage of doing something just because people expect you. I found myself saying "who put country in my black metal"
Baroness; Mastodon on 'roids.
Benighted; Another French band -- must be something in the wine; brutal deathgrind dealing with psychology. Apparently all 14 of the vocalist's vocal cords are active instead of the normal 12.
Beneath the Massacre: Completely atonal, extremely technical and brutal death metal that uses breakdowns from Canada.
Cephalic Carnage: Experimental and Progressive grindcore with doom, sludge, thrash, death, black and pretty much every genre of metal ever. Pretty much one of the best bands ever.
Circle of Dead Children: Deathgrind, brutal and uncompromising.
Daughters: Grind-noise-mathcore.
Engineer: Sludgey mathcore, which at first doesn't make sense but is awesome nonetheless.
Genghis Tron: Genghis. Tron. Think about it. Brutal and electronic grindcore.
Goatwhore: Blackened death metal from NOLA. Sounds exactly like that, too.
His Hero Is Gone: Eyehategod wrote an album called Southern Discomfort. HHIG made a band. Pissed off sludge-crust with the rising south behind them. Disbanded.
The Human Abstract: Classically influenced technical metalcore. The classical elemental has fallen off with their latest album.
Mistress & Raging Speedhorn: Sludgegrind from Britian. Both are awesome as possums (okay, maybe not; not at all, actually).
Origin: Technical deathgrind from Kansas. Apparently people in cornfields have nothing better to do except create lifecrushing music.
The Red Chord: I won't say they are the best band ever, or they are extremely technical, or even that good. Except they're catchy. Somewhere between death metal and deathcore.
Tragedy: The phoenix to His Hero Is Gone's ashes. Less sludgey and more crusty and powerviolence, but nothing else was lost in translation.
Zao: One of the grandfathers of modern hardcore -- and sadly, metalcore. Though, they are largely imitated (see: Converge), Zao's style remains their own as the style switches and changes between every album
__________________ Inspiration from your damnation. Your breath blackens my lungs.
Quote of the week by Elan (from the Order of the Stick web comic) "My god's power to get us into trouble is stronger than your god's power to get us out!"
Tactician 80% | Character Player 65% | Storyteller 65% | Power Gamer 60%
Weekend Warrior 60% | Casual Gamer 40% | Specialist 30%
Well, how do you categorize Amon Amarth? Given that one of their albums is called "With Oden on our Side" and most of their lyrical content revolves around dying gloriously in battle and sailing the seas with their bands of men, what better to call them than Viking Metal? I realize they don't have the folk-tinge that many other Viking style groups have, like Ensiferum, but I don't think the instruments necessarily dictate the category. Either way, AA kick some serious butt.
Most of these aren't really 'new' bands but I thought they'd be stuff that any fan of fantasy and RPGs might enjoy. There's a brief explanation of the band and their style as well.
Some additional info on some of these:
Quote:
High On Fire- classified as "stoner metal" but this is a bit misleading. Riffs and drums that will crush skulls with a singer who sounds like Lemmy after gargling with battery acid.
There is a lot going on beneath the surface of this band- considering the genre they're lumped into, the lead guitarist/vox is surprisingly skilled. His axe of choice is an 8-string with a unique tuning that doubles up on certain notes- not something Joe Average Guitarist is going to try out.
Quote:
The Sword- Black Sabbath style riffage with D&D style lyrics.
I like this band. They're from Austin, and while I was down there recently, I managed to read an interview with them in the local press- the lead singer is a long-time D&D player.
Quote:
Iced Earth- basically a modern take on Iron Maiden (meaning faster and slicker). Lyrics tend to be more about myths, movie monsters, and history.
And as I recall, the lead singer is the guy who joined Iron Maiden for a while when Bruce Dickensen left to persue a solo career (and did some cool tunes while doing so, BTW), then left when Bruce returned.
Well, how do you categorize Amon Amarth? Given that one of their albums is called "With Oden on our Side" and most of their lyrical content revolves around dying gloriously in battle and sailing the seas with their bands of men, what better to call them than Viking Metal? I realize they don't have the folk-tinge that many other Viking style groups have, like Ensiferum, but I don't think the instruments necessarily dictate the category. Either way, AA kick some serious butt.
Amon Amarth = kick ass, just saw them on Saturday!
Now, I am going to take a shortcut here and re-post what I have written in a facebook group regarding Amon Amarth's genre. It's a bit of a read, but some might find it both or either interesting and enlightening.
Spoiler:
I am compelled, whilst headbanging away in my chair to a thunderous, majestic viking soundtrack consisting of Bathory, Thyrfing and others, to set straight certain mis-conceptions in the modern Metal scene of Amon Amarth and to what specific sub-genre their music pertains to.
And to get to this, we have to delve into a considerable amount of history.
Amon Amarth play a brand of extreme Metal ultilizing a vocalist, two guitarists (though only a single guitarist on their first full-length record 'Once Sent from the Golden Hall'), a bass guitar player and a drummer. The vocal style is of a standard Death Metal variety, with deep, “Cookie Monster” vocals interspersed with the occasional, more high-pitched Black Metal scream along with various bellows, shouts, and other gutturals. Under the moniker of 'Scum', Amon Amarth was first formed in 1988, playing a fairly standard brand of Death Metal on a single demo, and then, with a name change sometime in 1992, they assumed their now-familiar mantle of Amon Amarth.
In 1993, something happened in the Death Metal scene which resonates to this day – Carcass, a UK band already reknowned for creating the Deathgrind sub-genre of Goregrind in their early career, released 'Heartwork', which was a complete divergence from their previous records into something which could only be later identifyed as the first Melodic Death Metal album.
Soon thereafter, this new brand of “Melodic” Death Metal was quickly picked up by various Swedish bands – At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames being the founding fathers of this movement, hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden. Tumba, the hometown of our buddies Amon Amarth is geographically on the opposite end of southern penisula of Sweden, but it is in the south. We can only assume in the years from the name change in 1992 to the release of the full-length 'Once Sent from the Golden Hall' in 1998 that Amon Amarth were exposed to this growing scene, and that they thereafter were a part of it. Their sound, musically, is without a doubt Death Metal with a large, melodic, “splash” of flavour. Not to be under-emphasized, Amon Amarth have also frequently used the decidedly Black Metal style of guitar riffing called “tremelo picking” which is a repiticious style of picking focusing on a few cords and the like (admittantly, I am no expert on exact guitar terminology, but I can pick out tremelo picking as well as the next guy – probably better, actually). In short, Amon Amarth have always had a certain “Blackened Death Metal” style to their music, alongside their more important (and more prominent) Melodic Death Metal style.
In any case, now that we have the history of Amon Amarth down-pat, we need to focus on why people seem to always want to call them “Viking Metal” or “Odinistic Viking Metal” or something else entirely mis-leading. Another history lesson coming right up!
Viking Metal all began with Bathory; more specifically the founder, song-writer, and master-mind Tomas “Quorthon” Forsberg. In 1988 he released what was to be the start of Viking Metal: 'Blood Fire Death.' An epic, driven album; it notably has three main elements which can be traced to all later works in his “Viking Metal” discography:
1) an extreme metal element, specifically of the Black Metal variety, which Quorthon also helped found, alongside bands such as Venom, Mercyful Fate, Sarcófago and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost.
2) a Folk music element, specifically that of a Norse/Scandinavian variety. Quorthon essentually romaticised him heritage through his music, using his native styles to accuentuate and take hold of his music.
3) an epic atmosphere and feel to the music. Emotionally charged and inspired, Quorthon's music stands the test of time even today as a staple of extreme metal – and an Epic, bombastic one at that.
Now, we must define certain other things before we go on.
Folk music, combined with Heavy Metal, had never been done before Bathory came along and did it, and indeed this inspired the next generation of musicians. However, what Bathory did was not, in the sense of what we define Folk Metal as today, “Folk Metal”. That title is reserved for the 1991 release of Skyclad's full-length 'The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth', which was the first true merger of Folk music and Metal music. What Bathory did with an Epic, Folky version of Black Metal is DISTINCT from Skyclad's fusion of Heavy Metal and Folk Music.
Now, with all of THAT in mind, let us reconcile Viking Metal with Amon Amarth.
Amon Amarth play a style of (slightly Blackened) Melodic Death Metal. They do not use Folk melodies or instruments in their music whatsoever. They are from the Death Metal school of music, whereas Viking Metal is certainly descended from Black Metal, and while they have their Epic moments in their music, Amon Amarth are most certainly not Epic in that certain atmospheric, melancholic way that Bathory was.
Amon Amarth are bloody fantastic! I can't stress this enough. I was lucky enough to check them out live in concert last year at Winnipeg's very own Royal Albert bar, and what with a thunderstorm raging outside, with pouring rain and a great crashing of lighting bolts and wanton clouds, even I felt like we were there with Oden at our sides ( ). Without a doubt in my mind, without a shred of regret, I can say THAT will be the defining metal concert of my life. Freaking EPIC!
But, I can also say, as one who loves a good debate and the dissection of Heavy Metal and it's plethora of off-shoots, fusions and otherwise tangled web of genres and sub-genres, I cannot NOT speak out when someone foolishly trys to pass off Amon Amarth as Viking Metal. They simply don't fit the bill. Stylistically, the only thing they mirror Bathory in is their slight Black Metal leanings, and the use of Vikings in their lyrics. That's all folks. Nothing more.
So, feel free to go ahead and enjoy Heavy Metal, Folk music and whateverotherkindof music you enjoy, but if you've taken the time to read through this diatribe of Amon Amarth and that bands supposed connection with Viking Metal, perhaps you have learned something not entirely un-useful for the day. As Aristotle put it “everything in moderation - except for knowledge.”
Also appropriate at this time would likely be a word of wisdom from Amon Amarth themselves, wouldn't you think? From the frontman himself, here's Johan Hegg's (rather cheeky) words of wisom, from this (The Metal Web - Amon Amarth Interview) The Metal Web interveiw:
“We play Death Metal. We write about Vikings so therefor some refer us to Viking metal, but I have no idea what that is. I can't imagine the Viking’s veer into metal at all except on the swords and stuff. And musically, I guess they only played these strange lip instruments and some bongos or whatever.”
keep it heavy,
--N
So, that is my full reasoning as to why Amon Amarth are not Viking Metal. My apollogies for any cheeky attitude contained in the above, it was focused towards a rather annoying folk and viking metal enthusiast in my city who cheezed me off enough in the first place to write all that
Quote of the week by Elan (from the Order of the Stick web comic) "My god's power to get us into trouble is stronger than your god's power to get us out!"
Tactician 80% | Character Player 65% | Storyteller 65% | Power Gamer 60%
Weekend Warrior 60% | Casual Gamer 40% | Specialist 30%
Amon Amarth = kick ass, just saw them on Saturday!
Now, I am going to take a shortcut here and re-post what I have written in a facebook group regarding Amon Amarth's genre. It's a bit of a read, but some might find it both or either interesting and enlightening.
Spoiler:
I am compelled, whilst headbanging away in my chair to a thunderous, majestic viking soundtrack consisting of Bathory, Thyrfing and others, to set straight certain mis-conceptions in the modern Metal scene of Amon Amarth and to what specific sub-genre their music pertains to.
And to get to this, we have to delve into a considerable amount of history.
Amon Amarth play a brand of extreme Metal ultilizing a vocalist, two guitarists (though only a single guitarist on their first full-length record 'Once Sent from the Golden Hall'), a bass guitar player and a drummer. The vocal style is of a standard Death Metal variety, with deep, “Cookie Monster” vocals interspersed with the occasional, more high-pitched Black Metal scream along with various bellows, shouts, and other gutturals. Under the moniker of 'Scum', Amon Amarth was first formed in 1988, playing a fairly standard brand of Death Metal on a single demo, and then, with a name change sometime in 1992, they assumed their now-familiar mantle of Amon Amarth.
In 1993, something happened in the Death Metal scene which resonates to this day – Carcass, a UK band already reknowned for creating the Deathgrind sub-genre of Goregrind in their early career, released 'Heartwork', which was a complete divergence from their previous records into something which could only be later identifyed as the first Melodic Death Metal album.
Soon thereafter, this new brand of “Melodic” Death Metal was quickly picked up by various Swedish bands – At the Gates, Dark Tranquillity and In Flames being the founding fathers of this movement, hailing from Gothenburg, Sweden. Tumba, the hometown of our buddies Amon Amarth is geographically on the opposite end of southern penisula of Sweden, but it is in the south. We can only assume in the years from the name change in 1992 to the release of the full-length 'Once Sent from the Golden Hall' in 1998 that Amon Amarth were exposed to this growing scene, and that they thereafter were a part of it. Their sound, musically, is without a doubt Death Metal with a large, melodic, “splash” of flavour. Not to be under-emphasized, Amon Amarth have also frequently used the decidedly Black Metal style of guitar riffing called “tremelo picking” which is a repiticious style of picking focusing on a few cords and the like (admittantly, I am no expert on exact guitar terminology, but I can pick out tremelo picking as well as the next guy – probably better, actually). In short, Amon Amarth have always had a certain “Blackened Death Metal” style to their music, alongside their more important (and more prominent) Melodic Death Metal style.
In any case, now that we have the history of Amon Amarth down-pat, we need to focus on why people seem to always want to call them “Viking Metal” or “Odinistic Viking Metal” or something else entirely mis-leading. Another history lesson coming right up!
Viking Metal all began with Bathory; more specifically the founder, song-writer, and master-mind Tomas “Quorthon” Forsberg. In 1988 he released what was to be the start of Viking Metal: 'Blood Fire Death.' An epic, driven album; it notably has three main elements which can be traced to all later works in his “Viking Metal” discography:
1) an extreme metal element, specifically of the Black Metal variety, which Quorthon also helped found, alongside bands such as Venom, Mercyful Fate, Sarcófago and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost.
2) a Folk music element, specifically that of a Norse/Scandinavian variety. Quorthon essentually romaticised him heritage through his music, using his native styles to accuentuate and take hold of his music.
3) an epic atmosphere and feel to the music. Emotionally charged and inspired, Quorthon's music stands the test of time even today as a staple of extreme metal – and an Epic, bombastic one at that.
Now, we must define certain other things before we go on.
Folk music, combined with Heavy Metal, had never been done before Bathory came along and did it, and indeed this inspired the next generation of musicians. However, what Bathory did was not, in the sense of what we define Folk Metal as today, “Folk Metal”. That title is reserved for the 1991 release of Skyclad's full-length 'The Wayward Sons of Mother Earth', which was the first true merger of Folk music and Metal music. What Bathory did with an Epic, Folky version of Black Metal is DISTINCT from Skyclad's fusion of Heavy Metal and Folk Music.
Now, with all of THAT in mind, let us reconcile Viking Metal with Amon Amarth.
Amon Amarth play a style of (slightly Blackened) Melodic Death Metal. They do not use Folk melodies or instruments in their music whatsoever. They are from the Death Metal school of music, whereas Viking Metal is certainly descended from Black Metal, and while they have their Epic moments in their music, Amon Amarth are most certainly not Epic in that certain atmospheric, melancholic way that Bathory was.
Amon Amarth are bloody fantastic! I can't stress this enough. I was lucky enough to check them out live in concert last year at Winnipeg's very own Royal Albert bar, and what with a thunderstorm raging outside, with pouring rain and a great crashing of lighting bolts and wanton clouds, even I felt like we were there with Oden at our sides ( ). Without a doubt in my mind, without a shred of regret, I can say THAT will be the defining metal concert of my life. Freaking EPIC!
But, I can also say, as one who loves a good debate and the dissection of Heavy Metal and it's plethora of off-shoots, fusions and otherwise tangled web of genres and sub-genres, I cannot NOT speak out when someone foolishly trys to pass off Amon Amarth as Viking Metal. They simply don't fit the bill. Stylistically, the only thing they mirror Bathory in is their slight Black Metal leanings, and the use of Vikings in their lyrics. That's all folks. Nothing more.
So, feel free to go ahead and enjoy Heavy Metal, Folk music and whateverotherkindof music you enjoy, but if you've taken the time to read through this diatribe of Amon Amarth and that bands supposed connection with Viking Metal, perhaps you have learned something not entirely un-useful for the day. As Aristotle put it “everything in moderation - except for knowledge.”
Also appropriate at this time would likely be a word of wisdom from Amon Amarth themselves, wouldn't you think? From the frontman himself, here's Johan Hegg's (rather cheeky) words of wisom, from this (The Metal Web - Amon Amarth Interview) The Metal Web interveiw:
“We play Death Metal. We write about Vikings so therefor some refer us to Viking metal, but I have no idea what that is. I can't imagine the Viking’s veer into metal at all except on the swords and stuff. And musically, I guess they only played these strange lip instruments and some bongos or whatever.”
keep it heavy,
--N
So, that is my full reasoning as to why Amon Amarth are not Viking Metal. My apollogies for any cheeky attitude contained in the above, it was focused towards a rather annoying folk and viking metal enthusiast in my city who cheezed me off enough in the first place to write all that
cheers,
--N
Quite an epic reaction. While Amon Amarth may not use the folk instruments common in Viking metal, I'd still place them closer to that category than Death or Melodic Death. To me, Melo-Death can have all sorts of lyrical themes, but in the case of AA, where there is a strong lyrical focus on Norse mythology and such, they've gone from a strictly Melodic-Death Metal band into Viking territory. Just barely.
Quite an epic reaction. While Amon Amarth may not use the folk instruments common in Viking metal, I'd still place them closer to that category than Death or Melodic Death. To me, Melo-Death can have all sorts of lyrical themes, but in the case of AA, where there is a strong lyrical focus on Norse mythology and such, they've gone from a strictly Melodic-Death Metal band into Viking territory. Just barely.
Lol, well fair enough, but still, they are from the death metal school, not the black metal school, and that already is a deal-breaker, haha.
I will, at the interest of this thread, respectfully disagree and close the issue here cheers man!
Quote of the week by Elan (from the Order of the Stick web comic) "My god's power to get us into trouble is stronger than your god's power to get us out!"
Tactician 80% | Character Player 65% | Storyteller 65% | Power Gamer 60%
Weekend Warrior 60% | Casual Gamer 40% | Specialist 30%
Black Tide- some youngsters going for a classic thrash-metal sound (some have called this band Silverchairica). Lead singer sounds like a younger version of Jeff Keith (Tesla).
Black Stone Cherry: a modern take on classic blues based hard rock/metal.
Books currently in play: Dungeon & Dragon Magazine (*Age of Worms AP*), 4e Core books
Current Campaign: Age of Worms, Episode #4- "Hall of Harsh Reflections" - converted for 4e. -- Arryk, Human Cleric/Radiant Servant 12; Valkondinar, Human Wizard/Battle Mage 12; Frindo Meadmaker, Halfling Rogue/Shadow Assassin 12; Moo'Haa, Half-Elf FeyLock/Fey Touched 12; Skin'zorrn, Dragonborn Paladin/Justicar 12 -- This party rocks!
If you like prog metal, you'll love Intronaut. They're a student of the Cult of NeurIsis school of post-metal, but they heap in enough of other genres to keep it interesting. This is more of a prog-sludge beatdown than soundscapes and drone guitars.
__________________ Inspiration from your damnation. Your breath blackens my lungs.
I haven't heard anything from these 3 bands except for some videos, but I like what I've heard:
Pelican
Boris
EverGrey
Pelican is pretty good background type music for D&D and Evergrey are suitably epic. I haven't heard any of Boris' music yet though. Pelican deserve a D&D nod for the title of their album "The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw". It's not a reference to anything fantasy or whatnot, but it sure sounds sweet.
Lair of the Minotaur is very cool sludge-doom mixed with a little Motorhead. Every single song title could be something from a fantasy game or novel. Also, Bloodhag's album "Hellbent for Letters" is just a tribute to a ton of their favorite fantasy and sci-fi authors done in a death metal sort of way. Hilariously awesome.
Iced Earth- basically a modern take on Iron Maiden (meaning faster and slicker). Lyrics tend to be more about myths, movie monsters, and history.
Iced Earth is a great band. Their music is tough to locate here, however. (FYI... I'm not into downloading music. I prefer CDs.) Still, I highly recommend them.
). Without a doubt in my mind, without a shred of regret, I can say THAT will be the defining metal concert of my life. Freaking EPIC!
cheers man!
