Metal Heads Assemble!!

[BurningDoom]

http://www.blind-guardian.com/2012/12/0 ... uary-2013/



Oh wow.

Looks incredible! But I'm sure it's quite pricey.

[BoneSnapDeez]

What do you guys think of all this recent "blackgaze" music (Alcest, Lantlôs, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets, Sleeping Peonies, etc)? Legit tunes or trendy hipster bullshit? I, for one, enjoy this type of stuff quite a bit.

[Snowman Death Droid]

What do you guys think of all this recent "blackgaze" music (Alcest, Lantlôs, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets, Sleeping Peonies, etc)? Legit tunes or trendy hipster bullshit? I, for one, enjoy this type of stuff quite a bit.

I'm not sure I understand. What is "Blackgaze"? Why do these bands sound...off. Okay I think I know why, I'm just now sure I like it. I'd say it's trendy hipster bullshit, though it's definitely not as bad as some of the Metalcore that came out in the last five or six years.

A lot of it kind of reminds me of Fen:



I'm not a big fan of Fen, but I do like this song. Would they count as Blackgaze?

[Lone Wanderer]

Chris Barnes isn't a good vocalist - never been a huge fan.

His vocals work okay on CC's first 3 albums. He sounds really shitty on The Bleeding and on all the Six Feed Under stuff he just plain sounds goofy.

Have you ever heard those AC/DC covers he did? Absolutely hilarious.

Supposedly one of the reasons they kicked him out is that his vocals were deteriorating, and how many years ago was that? I can't imagine how bad he is now.

[BoneSnapDeez]

What do you guys think of all this recent "blackgaze" music (Alcest, Lantlôs, Amesoeurs, Les Discrets, Sleeping Peonies, etc)? Legit tunes or trendy hipster bullshit? I, for one, enjoy this type of stuff quite a bit.

I'm not sure I understand. What is "Blackgaze"? Why do these bands sound...off. Okay I think I know why, I'm just now sure I like it. I'd say it's trendy hipster bullshit, though it's definitely not as bad as some of the Metalcore that came out in the last five or six years.

A lot of it kind of reminds me of Fen:



I'm not a big fan of Fen, but I do like this song. Would they count as Blackgaze?

Blackgaze is ostensibly a mixture of black metal and shoegaze, though I really find it to be its own distinct genre - sort of like how metalcore is its own "thing" (it's not literally a mashup of hardcore and metal, though perhaps some early metalcore bands were).

To me "blackgaze" has that distinct tremolo riffing, but the riffs sound, shall we say, more "joyous" (or at least "less tragic") than traditional black metal. Vocals can be the typical screamed vox or My Bloody Valentine style clean-muffles. I suppose Alcest is the quintessential band:



Fen "counts" I guess, at least according to RateYourMusic genre tags:

http://rateyourmusic.com/artist/fen_f1

Anyway, I really dig this type of stuff, but I'm still not entirely sure what to make of it. I can see it as possibly being a trend that disappears just as quickly as it emerged.

[Snowman Death Droid]

Snip Snip Snip Snip Snip Snip

Okay, so what's Shoegaze...and how to you pronounce it? It can't literally be "Shoe" "Gaze", can it?

I detected no Black in the song you posted, nor much of any in anything else I'm hearing from Alcest (except from the demo Tristesse Hivernale). I suppose counting it as it's own genre might be best, I always felt that way about Metalcore too.

[AppleQueso]

Snip Snip Snip Snip Snip Snip

Okay, so what's Shoegaze...and how to you pronounce it? It can't literally be "Shoe" "Gaze", can it?

It is pronounced "Shoe" "Gaze". When the bands perform, they do a lot of stuff with guitar effects pedals, so they end up staring at the floor a lot while they're playing. It ends up looking like they're staring at their shoes, hence the name.

...sort of like how metalcore is its own "thing" (it's not literally a mashup of hardcore and metal, though perhaps some early metalcore bands were).

Most of the popular metalcore I've heard kinda sounds like At The Gates/"Heartwork" - era Carcass mixed with Earth Crisis or something. (I don't like Earth Crisis)

In any case, extreme metal and hardcore punk have a ton of cross pollination anyway.

[BoneSnapDeez]

Okay, so what's Shoegaze...and how to you pronounce it? It can't literally be "Shoe" "Gaze", can it?

Oh yes, that's how you pronounce it. Like AppleQueso said, the musicians stereotypically stare downward - hence the name. Anyway, it sounds like noisy, hazy, wall-of-sound indie rock... Kind of.

Most of the popular metalcore I've heard kinda sounds like At The Gates/"Heartwork" - era Carcass mixed with Earth Crisis or something. (I don't like Earth Crisis)

Yeah... And it sounds bad.

I can't believe how popular Earth Crisis is/was.

[Gamerforlife]

When I think shoegaze I think Toni Haliday and Curve

and there's no such thing as "hipster" music. It's just a meaningless word that everybody applies their own definition too...much like the word "emo"

[BoneSnapDeez]

I don't want to derail this any further, but emo is a genre (see Indian Summer, Moss Icon, Portraits of Past, etc). The word did get co-opted and was rendered mostly meaningless though (sometime around 2000-2001 according to my calculations).