Metal topic? (partly for Booch)

This thread is about to die! (no!!!!!!!!)
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As We Die - The Right Choices (metalcore)
Wow... just wow... catchy cleans without being repetitive (see Mutiny Within). I'm tracking this band from now on...

Vale of Pnath (technical melodeath)
The self titled EP sounds amazing. (Booch did you dislike tech)

 

Right now I'm mostly enjoyed 80s-styled doom bands... the new albums by Blood Ceremony, The Gates Of Slumber, Lord Vicar and Premonition 13 are all really damn excellent!

 

@Balu
Awesome stuff! Really love all of them (and possibly their albums).

I've been exploring some new metalcore bands, getting into some technical death/metalcore bands and a few grindcore. Not sure if you would like them though...

Anyhow, I've been enjoying As We Die's The Right Choices EP a hell lot. It's got melodical guitar leads, duo vocals featuring good raspy screams and absolutely brilliant cleans (sometimes sounds a bit unnatural to me, but very catchy).

And now for a more unusual recommendation: Ravenmark: Scourge of Estellion OST. You can stream the whole album here. Its half loaded with slow, subtle songs (that aren't my tastes) and faster, more bombastic tunes (for battles etc). Highly recommend for you to listen.

 

Yeah grind is extremely harsh and abrasive. Kinda like the type of music that you would expect most other people to dislike.

Anyhow, I listened to the song and... I want to like it, but the amount of random synth and whispering/barely audible vocals gave me plenty of cringe worth moments. That being said, the sung middle section and everything else that I don't despise are highly enjoyable.
I searched up their band history and found Supreme Art of War to be one exceptional piece of symphonic/epic black metal album. Some of their vocals are worse than Children of Bodom though so... be careful ok? Don't hurt yourself when listening to this album .

 

Grindcore songs (that I like) sounds like good melodeath songs played at double or triple speed. That's the way (and only reason) I enjoy them, not for the pure speed or harshness (that would sound awfully boring).

Wow great find! Perfect timing too, I'm recently turning to some less intense, but still highly melodic music for reading .

I've heard of Napalm Death but their behemoth 12 LP catalogue would always put me off...

 

Just dropped by to tell of gunxsword of these three vaguely-Melodeath-but-Melodeath-enough-whilst-maintaining-some-sort-of-mainstream-but-not-so-mainsteam-sounding bands real quick. I don't doubt you never heard of them, but something to note while I flip a few pages back and read through and listen to some posted stuff. ^.^



@Balu` I've missed you buddy. Been really super busy at work and only get on here to post like... twice a day. I don't post in here as much cause I don't have time to read through all your guys' convo's and indulge in the music you post hahahaah so I don't want to feel like I am missing out.

P.S. Upgrade to iOS 5 yet?

@gunxsword If you are even moderately interested in any of those bands, I would highly suggest the albums that the songs belong to. Black Dahlia Murder - Unhallowed, Kataklysm - Serenity in Fire, and Darkest hour - Deliver Us. I find all three of those albums to be utterly fantastic. The ironic part is, I am not a huge fan of those three bands other albums. lol. Black Dahlia Murder's debut album Unhallowed album is one of my favourite melodeath albums of ALL TIME. Very unique sound, however, all their releases after, really are uninteresting. It's as if they used all their talent, thought, innovation and skill in that one album and slacked off the rest. They are worth checking out at least, particularly the last two, but I really hold their albums to a high standard considering they birthed Unhallowed. Kataklysm is great, all their albums are. Serenity in Fire just stood out to be the best imo. And Darkest hour is a strange band. Early album almost punk-like, and even a drop of metal core. However in "Deliver Us", they matured a shitload. Each song is amazing just as the one before it. Their later released albums aren't bad, and still carry the same more "Mature" sound, but they just didn't blow me away anywhere near as close as "Deliver Us" did.

Enough rambling.

 

Little Piece of Heaven - Avenged Sevenfold.

 

I think this is one subject I could go on and on and on about: How disappointed I was in the total style transfer from their first two albums. StST and WtF are classic Metalcore albums... but... I really don't like the direction they took, and I know M. Shadows had a lot of influence on the band because he "Didn't want to scream anymore". I understand the diversity and range there is in Singing vs. Screaming, but that's not what they cared about when they started. I also understand people change as well, but shifting from a solid Metalcore sound to a... p*ssy ass "Hard-Rock" style change is a bit weak for me. And I used to love A7x...

 

LOL! One of my favorite individual songs ever! Seriously, if someone asked me "What are your fav songs of all time" then this would probably be in the top 3 .

And yes I used to own all 5 A7X LPs. Nightmare (the song) and Afterlife are my favorite songs from them (and LPoH of course).

I'm actually going to offer some polemic comment on this one... I found their debut and sophomore metalcore album a bit... boring and of low quality (a.k.a. mediocre) compared to my other metalcore collections.
The debut is just flat out boring to me. Muddy sound quality, poor guitar tone, bad vocals, boring riffs and stale song structure.
The second album is a lot better, with some tracks such as "Unholy Confessions" and "Chapter 4" being highly enjoyable, mostly thanks to interesting vocal and instrument arrangements.

Ironically, the somewhat (widely disliked and scorned) intro tracks are the biggest highlights of the albums for me.

The latter releases, while diverging from the metalcore route, actually sound more melodical and enjoyable to my ears. The latter albums combine catchy and varied vocal performance with enjoyable riffs (Synister Gates is cool!), praiseworthy rhythm and bass guitar performance and wonderful drums by the now dead Rev...

Anyway my point is, A7X sounds better in hard rock/heavy metal territory than metalcore judge by their albums.

P.S. Save Me is awesome in the all the positive ways. Lost it All is pretty good too.

 

I am, unfortunately, inclined to agree with you in the sense that their Debut album was "Muddy sound quality, poor guitar tone, bad vocals, and stale song structure.", that's why I find it less of a "Metalcore" album and more of a "Punk" album in all honesty (which was great to me). But Waking the Fallen, while not nearly my favourite Metalcore album by any stretch of the imagination, was one of the first few Metalcore albums I got into, along with KsE's "Alive or Just Breathing" and As I Lay Dying's "Frail Words Collapse". So I hold it in a sort of special place in my heart. Not to mention it had amazing songs. Front to back.

I, too, think that WtF had interesting vocal and instrumental arrangements, which is why I found it so enjoyable, it was unique at the time, and catchy enough. However, I remember picking up "City of Evil" (so stoked) and driving on the way to one of my band at the time's shows jamming on that shit. This was also the time when everyone spread that rumor that he had "vocal surgery" after WtF (when in actuality he is just a p*ssy who didn't want to scream anymore) and we all believed it. So we pressed on thinking "Well he can't scream anymore, but for what it's worth... it's not awful, just not the same". Then following more and more listens (followed by finding out that his "Vocal surgery" was not true, he just didn't want to scream anymore), I found that there was much less balls to the music and more vagina (especially in the vein of Zacky and Synyster, whom are really talented). Sure, they are a bit more melodic, but more melodic like Gun 'N Roses, which I find influence increasingly prevalent in their 3rd release and beyond. And I hate them. A lot.

Despite all of this, I still listen to WtF from time to time, even on their latest album, the song "God Hates Us" rocked SHIT. But again, that was more or less for the fans of the olden days. Now-a-day kids that walk around with Avenged Sevenfold shirts and try and cover their songs on the guitar to impress their emo girlfriends walk around like A7x was never once a Metalcore band.

You are probably wondering why I have such a huge beef with this, it's because I REALLY used to like them. I mean, almost to the point of idolization. Painted my fingernails black, wore eyeliner, played their songs righteously in our band. I was a total nerd for that shit. And to see them completely stray away from that awesome style of music to some Radio-Friendly "Metal" band really broke my heart. Sure there are songs here and there on their later releases I can enjoy, but it's just not the same at all.

Now are you ready to really hate me? hahaha I went and saw CKY a few years back, back when A7x released their Self-Titled album. It was some lame rock band first, then CKY, then A7x. I was hanging out with a friend at the time that did photography for the Rialto Theatre in Tucson AZ, and advantageously, got to meet pretty much all the bands that rolled through there. So we were hanging out with Deron Miller, Jess Margera, and Chad Ginsberg at a smoke shop, and we were back at the front of the bus before they took off, and M. Shadows came over to the area we were and some girls and ridiculously over-feminine looking guys came rushing towards him and were hugging him, asking him for autographs, etc. We were walking near that area and he came over to us and said "What's up guys! Enjoy the show?" and I said "Yeah man, CKY was awesome but that Avenged Sevenfold band has been garbage since 'City of Evil'." and he actually asked me "Do you know who the f*ck I am?" and my friend (whom also shares similar sentiments on A7x as I do) said "Of course we do. You're the asshole who decided that mainstream money singing is cooler than being a real Metal band." hahahaaha and he actually walked up closer to my friend and said "You're going to pay for saying that." and walked away hahaahahahahahaaha. I was like wow what a f*cking p*ssy". Since then my opinion on them has changed entirely. Sure we were dicks and that wasn't necessary, but hey. It's not every day that you get to piss off a celebrity right?

 

L
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\(^O^)/ <-(hands-in-the-air & laughing)

AWESOME POST Booch!!!

You know what? I actually share a lot of similar... facts with you:

1.

This redacted quote describes my situation. My music taste progression is a bit weird:
Random music from a USB drive being passed around the class (lots of Linkin Park)>music from rhythm games (GH, RB Unplugged PSP)->Green Day->A7X->Metalcore->present day tastes (moving towards grind & tech)

2.

I'm not the type to decorate myself but I was so into them that I attempted to drag everyone else in my class to like them .
P.S.: I also discovered that there is a distinct music genre called 'pop' (the more prominent artists eg. JB, Lady GG etc.) that I would now dislike.

On the contrary, my discography history with A7X is in the exact reverse chronological order
*I bought Nightmare Deluxe as my first ever, complete hard rock album (the iTunes LP experience was awesome to a fanboy at that time).
*Moved back to City of Evil and played Bat Country 'n' to the power of 'xy' times.
*Got the self titled and spent a whole school day + afternoon listening to "Afterlife" on repeat. It sounded god like (not anymore). I soon declared war on autotunes after hearing "Lost" being messed up so badly by it.
*WtF. What the F.... The intro and second track were (and still is) my most songs of all time (100+) behind Afterlife. The album gave me a first taste (and a good one too, bless them for that) of metalcore which I now enjoy immensely. Still love some of the songs there, even if they aren't 'melodic' enough for my melodeath sharpened tastes.
*StST - Heavenly intro track. To End the Rupture is an example to how intro tracks can be short, and add value to the disk, unlike countless other wasteful 'short section of sound'. The rest were inferior to WtF though (but my then A7X fan bias effectively ignored this negativity).

And lol, nice way to piss off a celebrity . I would probably whip out my iPhone and play a Heaven Shall Burn/Unearth song on max volume and say: "I dig this shit" to show my stance though .

 

bullet for my valentine, slayer

 

It wasn't that bad at all, my only problem with it, is it was a tad too long for the music it was producing... I mean it kind of got boring after about 4 minutes of it. Like I said, wasn't bad at all, just... too long. lol.

I'm about to listen to the songs you posted a page or two back right now too, so I will post impressions of those as well. Really interested in those.