What are your favorite metal bands?

[binzing]

Cream could be metal if it was Sour Cream...ha ha he he

 

[Poop-Loops]

Whats the real difference between hard rock and metal?

The lyrics and themes, overall "sound" of the song.

Hard rock tends to be happy and hedonistic, metal tends to be sad, angry, or depressing. It's not about happiness.

Of course, there are bands that blur the line. quadraphonics said he considers AC/DC to be metal. Motorhead is right on that border. Iron Maiden is either very light metal or some weird progressive rock. Judas Priest had a sting in the 80's where they tried to sell out to hard rock.

Here's Hallowed be thy Name by Iron Maiden:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=b2za92DQOCw

See how that's different than a rock ballad? No mention of "baby" or "love". The themes tend to be a lot more serious than just a break up.

 

[B. Elliott]

The lyrics and themes, overall "sound" of the song.

Hard rock tends to be happy and hedonistic, metal tends to be sad, angry, or depressing. It's not about happiness.

Of course, there are bands that blur the line. quadraphonics said he considers AC/DC to be metal. Motorhead is right on that border. Iron Maiden is either very light metal or some weird progressive rock. Judas Priest had a sting in the 80's where they tried to sell out to hard rock.

Here's Hallowed be thy Name by Iron Maiden:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=b2za92DQOCw

See how that's different than a rock ballad? No mention of "baby" or "love". The themes tend to be a lot more serious than just a break up.

What about Dragonforce? They seem to be something in between. Most of their songs seem to be somewhat neutral. Fighting to prevail, the heroes strife... fantasy metal.

 

[Poop-Loops]

http://encyclopediadramatica.com/Dragonforce

 

[Monocles]

Badass, I got to find some tabs, cause I'm learning mando, especially Led Zep stuff. Ha, Norwegian death metal is both scary and funny, cause like if you saw these guys on the street they'd be the shy Norwegian bachelor type (which I fit into, 1/4 Norwegian) and yet they go and play this crazy stuff. Monocles, where are you?

I live in Atlanta.

I mostly do deathmetal as well. Favorites would be Nile, Cryptopsy, Decapitated, Death, At The Gates, Meshuggah, Suffocation. Naturally, I also love the classic 80's thrash and British stuff, and the even-classicer old Sabbath records. Other stuff I keep in heavy rotation would be Demanufacture by Fear Factory (never thought any of their subsequent albums came close), Lamb of God and older Children of Bodom (Follow the Reaper mostly). I keep trying to like blackmetal, but I haven't really been able to get into it. It's slowly growing on me though...

Wow, we have some very similar tastes. Fear Factory is actually the band that got me into death metal. I couldn't stand their first album, Soul of a New Machine, when I started listening to them, but it grew on me over time and now its my favorite album of theirs. I've been trying for a couple of years to give black metal a chance, but I can't really get into it either. There are scattered black metal tracks I enjoy, like Curse You All Men by Emperor. Summoning is also supposedly black metal, and I'm a fan of them, but besides the vocals they don't sound like other black metal I've heard. Meshuggah is amazing. I actually didn't enjoy them for a long time, but one day they just 'clicked' with me and everything just made sense, and now I think they're great. Their most recent album, obZen, is one of the best albums to come out this year in my opinion.

no offense but how can you acutaully listen to those people. Cannibal corpse have disgusting lyrics, even though people say "they're not meant literally" they're still disgusting. The guys just making noise which you can hardly hear. I just want to know what you think is so good or what you like about it, i don't mean to put down you, the genre or any other fans. It's just out of interest

No offense taken. I am very aware that most people find death metal digusting and/or unlistenable. I really can't defend it either. All I can say it that I enjoy it for no reason I can really explain. I've never paid much attention to the lyrics in death metal, so them being disgusting has never really bothered me. The fact that you can't tell what they're saying 90% of the time anyways makes that easy to do. I will say though that I the first time I listened (and discerned the words to) Eaten by Bloodbath I felt physically sick to the stomach. Its about wishing to be eaten alive. It kinda grew on me though; now I really enjoy the sick lyrics. I'm not really sure why. I actually detest gorey movies. I tend to view the vocals in death metal songs as more like an instrument though, meaning I think that the sound/pitch/etc. of a given syllable is more important than what it means in English.

There is plenty of death metal that isn't about killing people and cannibalism though. All of Nile's stuff is about ancient Egypt. Who would have thought you could learn about the Middle Kingdom and rock out at the same time!

Death metal DEFINITELY sounds like random noise when you are first listening to it. I think this about a lot of death metal bands when I first start listening to them, until I 'understand' their style. It also all sounds the same at first. I wish I had better words to explain it. Once you listen to it enough you can pick out the patterns, discern the differences, etc. Its sort of like a puzzle that your subconscious works out. Sometimes it takes a VERY long time for it to work it out. I didn't 'understand' most of Cryptopsy's earlier albums until many repeated listenings (over the course of a couple of years).

Finally, I think niche genres of music in general that don't enjoy a lot of commercial success tend to have a higher percentage of quality material. The reason being that most of the bands are playing for the love of the music. You certainly aren't going to make a living touring around a country a couple of months per year playing for 250 people a night at a show that costs $15 to get into, while making albums that sell maybe 10,000 copies, which probably describes the vast majority of death metal bands. Therefore its very easy to find more music of that genre that is good.

 

[matthyaouw]

Death metal DEFINITELY sounds like random noise when you are first listening to it. I think this about a lot of death metal bands when I first start listening to them, until I 'understand' their style. It also all sounds the same at first. I wish I had better words to explain it. Once you listen to it enough you can pick out the patterns, discern the differences, etc. Its sort of like a puzzle that your subconscious works out. Sometimes it takes a VERY long time for it to work it out. I didn't 'understand' most of Cryptopsy's earlier albums until many repeated listenings (over the course of a couple of years).

I kind of agree with this. Like lots of music, things like that are an acquired taste. I used to think a lot of that stuff was 'just noise' but through listening to similar albeit less extreme bands I got more accustomed to the kind of style they were using and over time some of the harder stuff has grown on me.

 

[Math Jeans]

Even though I'm not a big metal fanatic, there are quite a few songs out there I do like. My favorite metal group by far, Dragonforce!
http://www.decibelmagazine.com/uploadedImages/Issues/2006/022_August_2006/Up_Front/dragonforce.jpg

I love how Herman Li is trying to look serious in that picture.

One of my questions is: Do you consider shred guitar to be metal? Because I love shred guitar, but not as much heavy metal, although both are good.

 

[Poop-Loops]

They're all trying to act tough (like the guy on the right) while singing about dragons and sucking live:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdMIQ1jfJm0AX

Now Manowar, that's real Power Metal.

http://www.13thnote.co.uk/extras/manowar.jpg

 

[B. Elliott]

I love how Herman Li is trying to look serious in that picture.

One of my questions is: Do you consider shred guitar to be metal? Because I love shred guitar, but not as much heavy metal, although both are good.

Now that you mention it, I can't think of a single picture of a metal band where they're not looking serious. To be honest I'm not sure what the difference between shred guitar and metal is. Once you start drifting into really fast paced heavy guitar techniques... it all sound the same to me. Not my genre.

 

[Poop-Loops]

Shred is shred. It's not very musical, so it doesn't matter either way.

 

[_Muddy_]

Shred is shred. It's not very musical, so it doesn't matter either way.

What do you mean by "not musical"?

By the way i kinds get why you guys like all that death metal music. However i highly doubt I'll be getting into it too soon. Metallica is the heaviest thing I've ever gotten into. Thanks to you and monocles for being so understanding. If i asked questions like this on the guitar forum I am part of i would have got "**** U D00D U FKIN SUCK"

 

[Poop-Loops]

What do you mean by "not musical"?

I don't know how much music theory you know, but most of shredding is just playing over chords modally. The emphasis is speed over music. This isn't always the case, but usually so.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=hb5QaCfm7bg


I don't know about you, but by the end of that all the notes started just melting together for me and I had to stop. This is opposed to:

http://www.megavideo.com/?v=5ESBWK2B (hit play)

Which are solos from actual songs. Notice how it sounds much different? (Except I hate Zakk Wylde. All his solos sound the same.)

By the way i kinds get why you guys like all that death metal music. However i highly doubt I'll be getting into it too soon. Metallica is the heaviest thing I've ever gotten into. Thanks to you and monocles for being so understanding. If i asked questions like this on the guitar forum I am part of i would have got "**** U D00D U FKIN SUCK"

Nah, I totally understand. When I first heard Death Metal I got turned off from it, too. I just gradually started enjoying it. I can't expect anybody to stick with it and start enjoying it.

Although, Okay, story time.

When my mom's car broke down, she used mine for a while. I don't like the stations in this area much, so I listened to CD's. Usually had something like Death (the band) on them. Since this was a new radio I got for Christmas (my old one died), my mom didn't know how to switch it back to radio from CD. So here was this 50 year old woman listening to Death Metal ahahahaha. Funny thing is she says she started enjoying it by the end. I don't know if she was just trying to be nice, but I can believe her because she listens to Techno and hard rock like Rage Against the Machine anyway.

 

[binzing]

Everyone on here turn on VH1 Classic or try to catch this sometime, it's on fairly often, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey...It'll clear up a lot. I think the narrator dude might be the guy at the far left in the Dragonforce picture, maybe I'll do some research...

 

[binzing]

So here was this 50 year old woman listening to Death Metal ahahahaha. Funny thing is she says she started enjoying it by the end. I don't know if she was just trying to be nice, but I can believe her because she listens to Techno and hard rock like Rage Against the Machine anyway.

My mom is the opposite (55 YO, so close age though) her idea of the ultimate evil form of metal seems to be Metallica, at least that's what she's fired off a few times when she's b!tchin about the kids these days, and such.

 

[Phrak]

did anyone buy GnR's Spaghetti album? what was that all about?

 

[Poop-Loops]

Everyone on here turn on VH1 Classic or try to catch this sometime, it's on fairly often, Metal: A Headbanger's Journey...It'll clear up a lot. I think the narrator dude might be the guy at the far left in the Dragonforce picture, maybe I'll do some research...

I saw that movie. Nah, the narrator is an anthropology graduate student apparently.

 

[_Mayday_]

Yes the lyrics are disgusting, but they are just there for entertainment. Ever watch a horror movie? Or play a violent video game? Not to mention all the books written like that. It's no different here.

I have watched horror and played violent video games, but some of the topics these people sing about would be illegal in both.

 

[quadraphonics]

Wow, we have some very similar tastes. Fear Factory is actually the band that got me into death metal. I couldn't stand their first album, Soul of a New Machine, when I started listening to them, but it grew on me over time and now its my favorite album of theirs. I've been trying for a couple of years to give black metal a chance, but I can't really get into it either. There are scattered black metal tracks I enjoy, like Curse You All Men by Emperor. Summoning is also supposedly black metal, and I'm a fan of them, but besides the vocals they don't sound like other black metal I've heard. Meshuggah
is amazing. I actually didn't enjoy them for a long time, but one day they just 'clicked' with me and everything just made sense, and now I think they're great. Their most recent album, obZen, is one of the best albums to come out this year in my opinion.

Likewise, there are some Emperor tracks that I get into, but then the next song turns me off. I like the older Venom stuff, and things like that; black metal of that vintage doesn't seem to be quite so overdone...

Death metal DEFINITELY sounds like random noise when you are first listening to it. I think this about a lot of death metal bands when I first start listening to them, until I 'understand' their style. [...] I didn't 'understand' most of Cryptopsy's earlier albums until many repeated listenings (over the course of a couple of years).

Yeah, Cryptopsy is the classic example of this. To this day, it takes me a couple of minutes to get "into the zone" when listening to them. It's crazy intense; you can keep finding new elements buried in their songs even after many listenings. Although their newer stuff is getting a bit more proggy/spacey, but maybe that's inevitable as a technical band gets older. I'm just worried that they've been through one too many lineup changes. I suppose we'll find out next month when their new album comes out...

As far as the definition of metal debate goes, I find that it's very hard to come up with an exact definition. Metal is an expansive genre that has changed greatly over time and, to make matters worse, is populated by many contrarians who delight in thwarting easy labels. For instance, consider the perrenial "is grindcore metal?" debate. More than that, you could make the case that metal is as much an identity as a musical genre, as there are bands that, musically, are pretty much metal, but for whatever reason are not considered as such, and vice-versa. In the end, it's like pornography: you know it when you see it.

 

[binzing]

We've made google's top three hits for viking metal mandolin tabs! Hey everyone, check out this playlist, http://www.imeem.com/dionycia/playlist/sCevZbpa/folkviking_metal_music_playlist/

 

[chaoseverlasting]

did anyone buy GnR's Spaghetti album? what was that all about?

I don't know about their Spaghetti, but I loved Use your illusions I and II.

 

[Math Jeans]

I don't know how much music theory you know, but most of shredding is just playing over chords modally. The emphasis is speed over music.

What? I don't recall any good shredding involving chords. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5gJJ7K1PJg&feature=related"

 

[quadraphonics]

Now that you mention it, I can't think of a single picture of a metal band where they're not looking serious.

The back cover of Reign In Blood by Slayer is a good example of a respectable metal band being photographed not being serious.

Although, that album was also back when you could have male lead singers hit high notes and still be respected...

 

[sacramentum]

best metal band = Sacramentum

!

 

[RocketSurgery]

no offense but how can you acutaully listen to those people. Cannibal corpse have disgusting lyrics, even though people say "they're not meant literally" they're still disgusting. The guys just making noise which you can hardly hear. I just want to know what you think is so good or what you like about it, i don't mean to put down you, the genre or any other fans. It's just out of interest

Cannibal Corpse and Nile have some of the most intricate guitar work and musical composition. Regardless of their image them and other even more technical bands are good examples of how Metal is second only to classical music when it comes to musicianship. It literally takes years and years to be able to play the kinds of stuff these bands play. Cannibal Corpse only recently was able to play on this level after they've all had about 10 yrs experience playing and like 6 albums under their belts. Whatever depth is lost in the lyrics is certaintly present in the music itself.

 

[RocketSurgery]

The back cover of Reign In Blood by Slayer is a good example of a respectable metal band being photographed not being serious.

Although, that album was also back when you could have male lead singers hit high notes and still be respected...

Actually to the contrary I've never seen a metal band that was totally serious except for Black metal bands.

Every metal band I know of is just a bunch of guys who like to joke around and have fun.
Here's the singer of Cannibal Corpse talking about his wife and kids and World of Warcraft