I quite like Damnation. It was the first Opeth record I heard. Then I was like "Holy Shit! These guys aren't who I thought they were, but they still kick ass!

So.. who digs Rammstein's Rosenrot? I think it's kickass. A big Rammstein fan..

Also, I'm interested what your favorite black metal is, guys.

I've been rocking IX Equilabor, however you spell it, the 1999 Emperor record as of late. KILLER!

Also been listening to the above-mentioned Vader.

Love that album! A very underrated band.


I've really been getting into Emperor lately, too. "Inno a Satana" leaves me awestruck every time I hear it. They were ridiculously talented. The new discs by Zyklon and Ihsahn are both excellent.

Enslaved's RUUN is one of the best albums of 2006. Check that one out.

Seriously, I can't categorize my metal. Except for glam metal, that's easy.

What system do you guys use? How many sub-genres do you really keep track of, and why?

The number of subgenres is so crazy now. The terms are used for convenience's sake...it's better than saying "yeah these guys do fast tremolo picking and screech, while the other guys do blastbeats and go WOARGH."

I guess it adds to the exclusivity of the scene...those who are down with the terminology speak the same language, kind of like D&D geeks.

I really don't have a preferred subgenre. Every one has great bands and crap bands. I was slowest with black metal, but I've come around in the last couple years.

As someone who sort of tries to keep up with current metal releases, I tend to throw the kinds of metal records that I hear into four sub-genres: death, black, doom, and grindcore. And then there's the "near guilty pleasure" area of power metal.

I suppose you could throw anything into one of those sub-genres.

I like Immortal, myself.



Only Emperor I've heard is their last one ... must admit, I like it more than I thought. I might be starting to come around to black metal, too ... but I'm not there yet. Immortal at least had some trad/power metal/melodic elements to them. And good production ... I tend to dislike the shittily produced BM bands, and since that's part of the whole aesthetic, its taking a bit to come around. Haven't listened to too many of these USBM bands everyone's raving about around here, lately.

That Enslaved kicks ass, though. Dig it quite a bit.

Burzum's Filosofem has really been kicking my ass as of late. "Jesus' Tod," anyone? Hot damn. That double bass pedal just goes and goes and goes, it does. Brilliant shit.

From what I have gathered, I would say that the Norwegian stuff like Burzum is totally groovy, whereas most U.S. Black Metal bands sound as if the room that they are playing in is crumbling and caving in around them. Maybe you want to bang your head and rock the fuck out; maybe you want to die running naked through the apocalypse. Whichever one of those appeals to you is the one you should go with, really.

Gotta say that new Nachtmystium continues to grow on me more and more...nearly as great as Wolves in the Throne Room.

Check out Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, from 1997. Brilliant stuff.

I haven't heard a lot of black metal, but the Spektr album someone posted in this thread a while back (Near Death Experience) is very cool. I'm not even a hundred percent sure it qualifies as straight black metal, but it's definitely a good listen.

I have yet to hear this band! Leviathan, also! Hint, hint.

I'm downloading a Dragonforce album right now! HEE!

DragonForce are a bunch of wankers in every sense of the word, but dammit I get such a kick out of Inhuman Rampage.


I'll see if I can do something about the Nachtmystium this weekend. It's a really cool album...typically lo-fi, but very groovy, with a really cool guitar synth sound popping in every so often.

And throughsilver is right, that Genghis Tron album is very, very good. Surprisingly accessible.

Ooh, do tell, my Canadian brother (well, OK. More like uncle )


Sweet. Oddly enough, that Mastodon album is growing on me; the techiness of it is really starting to appeal.

That Genghis Tron is so good, I'm beginning to wonder of I should have put it on my Decibel list.

Has anyone seen DragonForce live? I'm sure some folks have. Is it true they actually have trampolines onstage???

They didn't have trampolines when I saw them, but wind machines were used to full effect.

Here's some Leviathan for you Paves.




This is from the split he put out with Sapthuran earlier this year. I only uploaded the Leviathan half because the Sapthuran half is terrible. Anyway, I'm a huge Leviathan fan and have tons of his stuff and this is by far my favorite release of his. The first track ("Odious Convulsions") is the best black metal song I've heard all year. If you dig this stuff I 'd be happy to put up more.

I've been spinning Weakling (amazing stuff) and that Corrupted band that Burzum posted a while back. Both are amazing..

Also, the new Melvins. It's GREAT! Anyone want me to post, if they didn't already grab it when I did. Comes out in.. October?

As far as metal subgenres go, there are too many to count. I'll post a brief overview of all the major genres if you want.. There's a hell-of-a-lot of those, too.

By the way, speaking of Rammstein, I just found their 2004 record, "Reise, Reise" online and it's killer.

That's a terrific album..."Meil Teil", "Amerika", and "Los" are all awesome.

To continue the Rammstein gushing, Sehnsucht will always be their masterpiece.

Dragonforce are just hilarious. Such a joke.

I saw them live, which is ideal. Because it was mostly shredding, and you all know that's why you listen to Dragonforce. So you can get your face melted off by Mr. Herman Li and Whats-his-face, the other guitarist.

By the way, you guys heard of 3 Inches of Blood? Some great traditional metal. If I had known who they were when they were at Bumbershoot, I would have seen them x.x

Also, I have a new favorite 'Tallica record. Kill 'Em All. SOO GOOD!

Is it just me, or were the 90s a horrible, horrible time for metal?

Iron Maiden.
Ozzy goin' through the motions.
Nu metal.
Metallica turns crap.
Slash quits GnR.
Halford quits Judas Priest.
Grunge shuts metal out of the mainstream.
Death is disbanded.
Sepultura loses their singer.
Bruce Dickinson quits Iron Maiden, bringing in Blaze Bayley from Wolfsbane, who then loses all his attitude and cool in his time with Iron Maiden.
Sabbath gets with Ian Gillan, and dissapoints with the results.
Slipknot starts.

The worst of those would probably the one about Slipknot.. I hate those guys so much..

But there are some good things..

Black metal and death metal become "big."
Rammstein forms.
Death release their best record, "The Sound of Perserverance."
The Melvins release their best music.

Struggling to come up with good things x.x

At times the 90s were extraordinary, because the genre, forced back underground in the wake of the grunge fad, and then smothered by the late-90s nu-metal fad, experienced unparalleled growth. It splintered in every direction imaginable, and while I found it a bit too overwhelming coming out of the much more straightforward 80s, there's an absolute bevy of 90s metal that has withstood the test of time.

I want to do a 90s box set compilation like the 80s metal and Diesel's alt-metal/hair metal ones sometime...

True. The 90s had the best underground scene, but meh.


I've noticed more and more that grunge is, at least a lot of the grunge bands, are just a punk metal hybrid. Some lean toward punk or metal, for instance, AIC is metal, Nirvana is more pop-punk, but most of the grunge bands have that as their core, which is what ties them togethor other than time and place..

Agree? Disagree?

Eh.

The Melvins are a metal band. Mudhoney was too Stooges-y to be metal. Soundgarden was sort of metal-ish, I suppose. Pearl Jam was just a 70s-ish hard rock band. I don't know much about grunge, really.

Now, Stone Temple Pilots? They're elegant bachelors. They're foxy to me. You?

Grunge is a grey area, but "Jesus Christ Pose" sure as hell is a metal song.

Half of Soundgarden is metal. The other half is.. Soundgarden.

The Melvins are SO good! I will never stop speaking Melvins praise.

I figured I have no business in the metal thread, but I'm bored so here I am. And then I see mention of my favorite Soundgarden song. "Jesus Christ Pose" kicks so much ass.


That's all I've got. Carry on as if I was never here.

That should be pretty easy to do.

So apparently Khanate is breaking up.

I was really hoping to see them again at some point. One of the loudest, most intense shows I've ever seen. At least we get one more album.

From Steven O'Malleys website:

Sad to hear about Khanate. Still one more album to look forward to, so at least there's that.


That it does.

The best description of Grunge that I can think of (and I undoubtedly stole it from a description of Josh Homme's music or something) is that it's a mix of the to Blacks: Flag and Sabbath.

Also, 90s was the worst thing to happen to Metal? No way in the world. It was probably the best decade, as it was so varied, and a tad fresher than this one. I might repond to your post point by point in the future, but Max leaving Sepultura does not outweigh Arise/Chaos AD/Roots by any stretch of the imagination.

I enjoyed the 90s metal scene in some ways. The early part of the 90s gave us a bunch of great, out of the mainstream alt metal albums that rank amongst my favorite of all times - Death Angel's Act III, Wratchchild America's 3D, Mordred's In This Life, Last Crack's Burning Time, Cyclone Temple's I Hate Therefore I Am...just to name a few. 1991 is probably my favorite year of music ever.

And while Maiden, Priest, and the other NWOBHM bands were busy shooting themselves in the foot, I thought Iced Earth did a great job filling the void for that kind of music. IE was in top shape during their lull.

And thanks to the general lack of mainstream metal, I was forced to look to Europe and found some great bands/genres that I probably would never have listened to.

Plus, I think metal needed some "time away" to regroup and transform itself, to become stronger than it was. I think the time out of the public eye was very beneficial to metal overall.

have you got the 'Demos Two Thousand' compilation? i can't find it anywhere.

btw Verräter is the best work of Leviathan i think. but i really like all of his releases, the Lurker of Chalice album is also great.

Sorry, Inzane, but to suggest that the 90's were a bleak time for metal is, well, INSANE.

(prime Sepultura, Prong, Pantera, good Anthrax, Exodus, Testament classic shit, Bathory, Mayhem, Alice in Chains, Danzig, White Zombie, Tool, Helmet, CopShootCop, Fear Facory, Rage Against the Machine's 1st two records, plus all of that killer underground shit).

Sorry, Inzane, can't get on board. That's just flat-out WRONG.

Sorry, don't have that comp. I've actually never been able to find Verrater either, any chance you could post it?

And yes, Lurker Of Chalice is great as well. Got the sweet green & black double vinyl of that a while back.


Anthrax and Testament had both gone to shit by the 90s. All of the other bands aside from Sepultura, Mayhem and Bathory are great examples of how metal in the 90s did suck. Of course there was a lot of good stuff too, but I think the 00s already have the 90s beat by a lindslide. It's a really great time for metal.

I'm not bragging but I need to tell someone: found mint (and I mean MINT) condition vinyl copies of Slaeyers' "Reign in Blood" and "Haunting the Chapel" on the weekend. $7.95 for the former, $6.95 for the latter. Don't know why the gods were smiling on me Saturday, but it seems they were. For what it's worth, I also picked up 999's "The Biggest Prize in Sport" which I hadn't heard in years and that's a damn fine album--holds up well.

I agree that the 00's are a better all-around decade for metal so far, but I truly like many of the bands listed in that post, even if they don't enjoy cred with Burzum. Also, I disagree that Testament and Anthrax had "gone to shit." Persistence of Time came out in '90, and two of my all-time favorite Testament releases - Demonic and The Gathering- came out in '96 and '98, respectively.

Wow, I never thought I'd hear that band's name anywhere... Do you have "Climbin' the Walls" anywhere? I would be interested in hearing that one again, it's been a long time! Or 3D if you got it, I remember the cover of "Time"

I'll take Bush over Belladonna. I thought Anthrax were better in the 90s than the 80s.


The 00s? Really?! Apart from a handful of bands, it seems like all ideas are regurgitated. A lot of bands either sound like Earth did in the early 90s, Neurosis did ten years ago, or At The Gates did 11 years ago.

Well, we'll have to see what the next few years bring us, but I think right now, metal couldn't be stronger. I think the sound is heading into cool directions, and while the ATG/Neurosis/Botch influence is undeniable, the better bands are building on the formula instead of regurgutating it.

What's happening in American metalcore right now is pretty fascinating, many bands are getting to their third or fourth albums, and we're really starting so see a clearer divide between the good and the mediocre.

Of course you would, you like the Black Album for christs sake!

It's all a matter of taste obviously, but the decline of all the great thrash bands along with the rise of nu-metal really turned me off of metal for most of the 90s. The Melvins & Neurosis were really the only two bands I kept up with during that time. It wasn't until I discovered and really started diving into black and doom metal in the late 90s/early 00s that I got interested again. When I think of my favorite metal albums, a large percentage of them came out in this decade. That being said, there was a lot of good stuff happening in the 90s as well and it's been great going back and hearing a lot of the stuff I missed out on at the time (Kyuss being one example whom I've really become obsessed with lately).

Yeah, I've got them both. Time was on Climbin' the Walls. I'll up it tonight if I remember. That first album was OK, but cheesy as hell lyrics. 3D is a great, great album.

I was a big fan of there's. I saw them 3 or 4 times while living in South Florida. One of the guys had a grandma or someone who lived down there, so they used to tour Florida fairly regularly. In fact, Prong and Last Crack both opened for them. I was less enthusiastic about the Souls At Zero stuff, and then they gave up and Shannon Larkin went on to drum for Ugly Kid Joe and now Godsmack. I guess he's the only one who really made it from the band.




Testament was always hit and miss for me in the 80s. I had a couple of their albums, but for every song I liked, there was usually 2 or 3 I didn't like. Oddly enough, once Skolnick left the band, I started to like them quite a bit. Aside from the two 90s albums you mentioned, I really liked Low, which seemed to be their attempt at meshing their sound with a Black Album-type straight forward sound. I probably like it simply because Billy hadn't gone completely to a death-style vocal (although Dog Faced Gods was the one song on this album that foreshadowed where they were going with that sound). The hit their peak for me in the 90s.

Anthrax...I enjoyed some of the Bush stuff, but they can never beat Among the Living or Persistence of Time, so he loses by default. They never fully hit their stride after PoT, but they didn't fall as badly as some other bands.

Some of us would argue that the formula was kinda perfected in 1996-99 , but I get yer point. Kayo Dot especially are a band that I dig a lot.

Euro Metal is certainly doing well for itself this decade (as opposed to last decade, when all European Metal that wasn't BM was either Paradise Lost wannabes or ATG wannabes. Mainstream US Metal is in a big decline, though. I don't know what I'd have done as a teen without Machine Head/Pantera/Fear Factory et al.


Oh cool, that was a big thing for me in about 1997. Any chance of a digested look at the peaks of the genre in the last 5 years or so? How high would Kezia rank on such a list, for example (if that counts)?





I see where you're coming from. As someone a little late for Thrash as it happened, I didn't suffer that 90s dropout. I got into the Thrash bands when they'd changed a bit, in about 1991-2. From there, I got a little heavier, into the Roadrunner stuff (and its ilk). From there, it was a small step (and a purchase of Terrorizer magazine) into the world of Norwegian Metal, and the very underground of the USA. Good thing mainstream Metal magazines had no real trends to occupy themselves with, as it was Metal Hammer that got me into His Hero Is Gone and bands like that.

I kept myself very occupied in the 90s

It's diluted, that's for sure, but as far as chart success goes, American metal hasn't been this strong in years. And with something like the new Mastodon selling well, debuting in the top 40, that's all the more promising.

I can't think of a more bleak time for mainstream metal than the mid-to-late 90s. There's nowhere to go but up.

Oh yeah, I mean creatively.

Mid 90s was Metal's commercial (and 'cool') nadir, so there were no genres for bands to hop on, if that makes sense. So they just really sounded like they wanted to. Now, the industry is so perfectly worked out that pseudo-individualisation rules all.

I mean, one of the biggest-selling Metal albums of the early-mid 90s was Type O's Bloody Kisses. I think that's fucking awesome, and it'd never happen nowadays. Went platinum in America. Also, stuff like Far Beyond Driven being #1 in US/Canada/UK/Aus etc., going platinum, top 20 UK singles and things.


Totally, as long as Linkin Park and Lost Prophetz is 'up'.

I don't think that's the case. Just look at the USBM bands...those releases are far more adventurous than much of Europe's black metal in 2006. There are exceptions, of course (Drudkh, Keep of Kalessin, Merrimack), but the best American bands are showing a great deal of creativity these days.

On a side note, I like the new Planes Mistaken For Stars album.

Fear not; I'm not dissing US Metal in general.


I should check that out for sure, I loved them back in the day.

Yeah, I suppose that as far as the mainstream is concerned the 00s are just as bad as the 90s were. I don't know, that stuff is so off my radar I don't even condsider it. Actually, I doubt there will ever be another metal band I like that breaks into the mainstream. Maybe I'll be surprised though, who knows.

Here a link to download Wrathchild America's Climbin' the Walls. It's a rip of a downloaded burn, so it doesn't even have song titles. IIRC, the cover of Time is either track 7 or 8.

hxxp://www.sendspace.com/file/el9r4q

Today's Stylus review reminded me that I wanted to talk about Harvey Milk here. Probably the best band to come out of my home town of Atlanta. They've just reunited and put out a new album which I still need to hear. But here is their 1997 album, Courtesy and Good Will Toward Men, which has just been reissued by Relapse. Check it out. I'm really excited to see them open for the Melvins next month.

My favorite of your native Atlantan sons is Mastodon, though these guys are definitely cool.