Metal Heads Assemble!!

[pepharytheworm]

Just bought three albums today.

Demonica - Demonstous
A new thrash band made up of members of Mercyful Fate and Forbidden. Its good, but not as good as their former bands stuff. The music sounds like Hank Shermann's other band Force of Evil but heavier. One song song sounds like a left over King Diamond song. Singer goes for this Rigor Mortis/Slayer sound which is probably the worst part of the album, but not a deal breaker. I recommend this album for those who like thrash but don't want it to sound stuck in the 80's.

Fav track right now - My Tongue


Pestilence - Doctrine
This album goes back to their progressive sound of Spheres but much heavier and faster. Mameli's vocals are back to his original sound which is close to a mix of Death and Atheist. The best part of the album is Thesseling's bass playing which is the best I have heard from him from awhile. The worst part of this album is the fact they are now using seven string guitars. If you like progressive death give this album a listen but don't expect to hear early pestilence sound.



Demolition Hammer - Necrology: a complete anthology
A 2 disc set containing all three of Demoltion hammers albums. This has to be one of the heaviest thrash bands I have heard and still sounding thrash. I really like this album, its just straight forward thrash but the aggression makes it sound really heavy. I recommend this album for fans of thrash bands like Exhorder, Sodom, and Kreator, or anyone who wants all of their albums in one package.

[Gamerforlife]

Posting some more Eluveitie awesomeness. It's amazing how easily they go back and forth between metal, folk and celtic sounding instrumentals that would have been right at home on a Highlander episode.

[BurningDoom]

We as metal fans know that metal itself is full of so many different styles and sub-genres that it has as much variety as the rest of the music. So let's see some lists of favorite bands from some Racketboy-Metalheads to get an idea of what everyone's into.

My list of bands:

3 Inches of Blood, All That Remains, Amon Amarth, As I Lay Dying, Blind Guardian, Children of Bodom, Dark Tranquility, Demons & Wizards, Disturbed, Fear Factory, Iced Earth, In Flames, Iron Maiden, Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Lordi, Megadeth, Metallica, The Misfits, Motley Crue, Mudvayne, Pantera, Queensryche, Ratt, Rob Zombie, Scar Symmetry, Skid Row, The Scorpions, Trivium, Type O Negative, Year 200X

[Gamerforlife]

We as metal fans know that metal itself is full of so many different styles and sub-genres that it has as much variety as the rest of the music. So let's see some lists of favorite bands from some Racketboy-Metalheads to get an idea of what everyone's into.

My list of bands:

3 Inches of Blood, All That Remains, Amon Amarth, As I Lay Dying, Blind Guardian, Children of Bodom, Dark Tranquility, Demons & Wizards, Disturbed, Fear Factory, Iced Earth, In Flames, Iron Maiden, Five Finger Death Punch, Killswitch Engage, Lordi, Megadeth, Metallica, The Misfits, Motley Crue, Mudvayne, Pantera, Queensryche, Ratt, Rob Zombie, Scar Symmetry, Skid Row, The Scorpions, Trivium, Type O Negative, Year 200X

We had done that in another metal thread, but it seems like that thread just died. I actually had an idea that it would be fun to find out people's all time favorite metal songs. Well, anyway here are my favorite bands.

Iced Earth - Just one of the best bands ever, especially with Matt Barlow on vocals. They're like the second band that I ever got seriously, hardcore into. Metallica was the first back in the day with Ride the Lightning, Puppets, etc.
Nightwish - Simply the best female fronted, symphonic metal band there is in my humble opinion. They set the standard for so many others, including Simone Simmons from Epica who started singing because of her love of Nightwish
Kvelertak - They only have one album but I fucking love almost every song on it. Perfect party metal. Kvelertak just makes some of the most fun, catchy, high energy metal I've ever head. Definitely a band to play LOUD at like a beer party or something
Metallica - It's Metallica, what needs to be said? Everything from Kill em All to Black is classic, regardless of what metal heads think of them now
Eluveitie - I only just recently discovered this band, but they are amazing. Melodic death metal, folk metal, acoustic folk music, celtic instrumental music, they do all of this so amazingly well and I also love how they can alternate between their male and female singers as lead vocalist depending on the song. Ton of great instruments they use too from flutes to violins and other things
Kamelot - For my money, they are the best power metal band and had one of the best vocalists of all time in Roy Khan
Dark Tranquillity/In Flames - The two bands that made me appreciate melodic death metal
Delain - Two solid albums of female fronted, Nightwish style metal. I love the guest singers they had on their first album, which including amazing talents like Liv Kristine and Marco Hietala. From what I've seen on youtube, Charlotte Wessels is amazing live and she's hot as fuck too.
Apocalyptica - I just love the unique sound they create with their cellos and they have a ton of amazing songs, not even counting the Metallica covers
Agalloch - This band is another fairly recent discovery for me, but they are amazing. Some of the bleakest, most atmospheric, epic metal music of all time. Listen to them on a cold, lonely winter day and you're probably want to kill yourself

I'm gonna go ahead and throw in an honorable mention for Leaves Eyes. They've been a little hit and miss with me with their first two or three albums, but the last one they put out called Meredead is just awesome from top to bottom. Plus, Liv just has one of the best female voices in metal along with Simone Simmons and Tarja Turunen. Not just in her own work, but she's been great in other bands like Cradle of Filth and Delain

[KillerJuan77]

I'm sorry to ask this but what are your views on death metal? Just out curiosity.

[Rurouni_Fencer]

Gamerforlife, check out Dismal Euphony right away! Symphonic death/black with a female lead for vox.. I think they were a Norwegian band, so the street cred is there..

Carven - Straight up classical/black, featuring both male/female vox! Classic D.E.!

Critical Mass - 1st track from their final album. Not as grungy-death as their original stuff, and a lot of fans hate on it, but the melody's still there if you like your metal catchy...

[aaron]

ahem.

black sabbath. iron maiden. slayer. metallica.

and then the rest. when you have these four, nothing else really matters all that much.

but scrolling through my itunes library, and leaving out most of the more hardcore/punk-ish bands, i do apparently like these bands, too:

abnegation. achilles. acme. aftershock. agony. alcest. amesoeurs. attitude adjustment. baroness. bastard priest. beyond posession. bookburner. botch. breather resist. buried inside. burn it down. burnt by the sun. burzum. catharsis. cave in. children of bodom. clutch. coalesce. coffins. commit suicide. converge. creation is crucifixion. the crown. cryptic slaughter. curl up and die. cursed. day of suffering. death. deceiver. destiny. the dillinger escape plan. discordance axis. disfear. doomriders. down. dr. doom. dysrhythmia. dystopia. earth. emeralds. end of all. the endless blockade. engineer. entombed. fall of efafra. fight amp. floor. frightener. fuck the facts. ghostlimb. gridlink. groinchurn. harakiri. hate eternal. hatred surge. heaven shall burn. hellchild. the human abstract. immortal. iron age. jesuit. karp. killswitch engage. lamb of god. a life once lost. luddite clone. magrudergrind. massmord. mind eraser. the minor times. misery signals. morning again. no regard. nocturnus. nuclear assault. obituary. overpower. pig destroyer. plague bringer. plutocracy. prayer for cleansing. premonitions of war. protestant. ramming speed. rise and fall. sacrifice. seven generations. sex machineguns. shai hulud. shitstorm. skeletonwitch. soilwork. spitfire. strongarm. suicidal tendencies. torche. trap them. trenches. turmoil. twelve tribes. upheaval. wetnurse. withered. wormrot.

i like a lot more but that's just scanning through my library for what i'd consider "metal" bands, i guess.

[AppleQueso]

I enjoy a nice selection of bands from all the major subgenres (heavy, power, doom, death, black) and like a lot of stuff outside of that. I lean most to death metal though.

Listing everything I like would take ages, so I'll try and just maybe list 10 bands or so:

Devin Townsend/Project/Band and Strapping Young Lad - One of the most consistent and all around versatile acts in all of metal, and a fun sense of humor to boot.
Sigh - Incredibly unique japanese black metal. Completely unpredictable and they have a sound like no other. They basically combine first wave black metal (Venom, Mercyful Fate, etc) with moogs, saxophones, crazy arrangements and in two albums, a bombastic orchestra.
Bolt Thrower - Talk about consistency, they've been awesome and heavy as fuck since their earlier, grindier days and managed to stay awesome and heavy even as they shifted to a groovier/more melodic style. They really know how to ride a good riff too.
Morbid Angel - I'm not including that abomination of an album that was their most recent (Illud Divinum Insanus, yuck) nor am I including the try-too-hard auditory mess that was Heretic, but everything else is extremely high quality. One of the most important and high quality bands in death metal.
Napalm Death - I'm not just talking about the genre-defining first two albums, but the extremely underrated late output as well, hell even the werid 'experimental' stuff like Inside The Torn Apart is incredibly cool too. I just really like this band, all of it.
Black Sabbath - The Ozzy stuff is classic (well everything up to and including Sabotage is at least) and the Dio stuff is simply fantastic as well. You can't go wrong with one of the fathers of the genre.
Judas Priest - Another classic act. Not really much else to say, except that Defenders of the Faith is their best album. Go listen to it.
Dissection - Okay so I've only really heard Storm of the Light's Bane, but damn that album's so good that it's enough for me to call the band one of my favorites. Black Metal with a strong sense of melody that doesn't sacrifice any of its aggression.
Immolation - When I think of pure evil, I think of this band. Nothing sends chills down my spine the same way that that opening riff of the title track for Here In After does.
Suffocation - Incredibly heavy and primal but with a certain sense of class and complexity that few of their countless imitators ever seemed to really grasp. Plus Frank Mullen is a VERY entertaining frontman, the band is awesome to see live.
Death - Arguably the father of Death Metal and incredibly influential in their early albums, the later stuff manged to kinda shy away from what you'd normally associate with the genre. It's all very good though, and the fantastic later material is excellent for building a bridge between heavy metal and death metal.

okay so I hit 11 bands, and at least half of those are death metal, oh well. I really do enjoy just about every genre though, some (non death/black) honorable mentions would include Blind Guardian, Galneryus, Slayer, Megadeth, Overkill, Sodom, Candlemass, Electric Wizard, Boris, Iron Maiden, Dio, Hell, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Motorhead, Jag Panzer, Megadeth, I could probably go on for ages I think so I'll just stop here.

[Gamerforlife]

I'm sorry to ask this but what are your views on death metal? Just out curiosity.

I am by no means an expert on it, or any aspect of metal really. However, I can tell you that ever since I first listened to In Flames I have found myself drawn to certain melodic death bands. I like Chaotic Beauty, A Virgin and a Whore and Before the Bleeding Sun from Eternal Tears of Sorrow. I really like a lot of the stuff Brandon Small has created with his virtual band Dethklok and was even thinking of throwing Dethklok on my list, but I didn't find myself enjoying Dethalbum II as much I did the first one. I've dug some songs by Soil Work and I enjoyed a lot of stuff from Dark Tranquillity's Character, Damage Done and Fiction albums. Most of In Flames early work I like. I've been cautious about hearing any of their more recent work though as I hear so many people hate on it. There are a couple Arch Enemy songs I like too.

Also, I tend to pick up on and enjoy melodic death elements in other bands like Eluveitie, Mercenary, Before the Dawn, and Into Eternity

I wouldn't say I love Death Metal, but I do find myself being open to its more melodic forms

Gamerforlife, check out Dismal Euphony right away! Symphonic death/black with a female lead for vox.. I think they were a Norwegian band, so the street cred is there..

Carven - Straight up classical/black, featuring both male/female vox! Classic D.E.!

Critical Mass - 1st track from their final album. Not as grungy-death as their original stuff, and a lot of fans hate on it, but the melody's still there if you like your metal catchy...

Good stuff, I actually do like that Critical Mass song. So good call on that one

EDIT:My bad calling Eternal Tears of Sorrow, Eternal Tears of Darkness. Fixed

[Evildeadmanwalking77]

Anyone here ever check out the heavy metal documentary Metal: A Heandbangers Journey from Sam Dunn? Pretty good IMO if you're a die hard metal fan like myself. BTW, some EXCELLENT choices in bands listed on this page so far!