Listening a bit to the second album by Next to None. It's called "Phases". This is a young band featuring Mike Portnoy's son Max Portnoy on drums. There are some clunky/cheesy/bad lyrics (they are still teenagers), some questionable choices (ie. scratching) and some obvious influences musically (Dream Theater of course and Lamb of God) but I think they show some promise as the move forward and mature. I will say this I do think the vocalist is the weak link. His clean singing isn't up to par and his growls are merely passable. He'll need to get better in a hurry for them to progress.
Not promoting it as a must have as it's a middling album but it's a new band with some interesting pieces. They just need to figure out how to put the pieces together better.
Speaking of the ever arrogant Mike Portnoy he has yet another new band, Sons of Apollo, releasing an album in the near future. Along with Portnoy the band features:
Billy Sheehan (Mr. Big, ex-David Lee Roth, Winery Dogs) - bass
Jeff Scott Soto (Trans Siberian Orchestra, ex-Malmsteen, ex-Journey) - vocals
Derek Sherinian (ex-Dream Theater and a bunch of others) - keyboards
Bumblefoot (Art of Anarchy, ex-Axl and Friends) - guitar
The thing with Gojira is that I absolutely love "Magma", but have a hard time enjoying most of their earlier stuff. Can't really explain it, it just doesn't grasp me as much. Which is a damn shame because "Magma" is a masterpiece. Insomnium meanwhile ... I don't know, the first time I heard "While We Sleep" was just pure eargasm
Amorphis and Omnium Gatherum also look like pretty cool bands, I guess I need to get even more into those Finnish and Swedish bands
...
Amorphis is one of my favourites. If you have not already done so you need to check out their three-album trilogy: Eclipse, Silent Waters, and Skyforger. These albums are retellings of stories in the Finnish epic, the Kalevala.
Last year I constructed an entire lecture around Amorphis's "Skyforger" in my second-year Old Testament class. The expressions on the faces of 20-year-old sophomores listening to Finnish metal in a university lecture hall was delicious.
__________________
Dealing with Everything from Dead Sea Scrolls to Red C Trolls
Quote:
Originally Posted by woob
"...harem warfare? like all your wives dressup and go paintballing?"
If I had to rank the albums, in my opinion:
Leprosy
Human
Scream Bloody Gore
Symbolic
Spiritual Healing
Sound of Perseverance
Individual Thought Patterns(still awesome!)
Really, I love them all.
Rest in peace, Chuck Schuldiner. That guy was incredible.
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Yeah. At first, when I was getting into Black Metal, I thought "wtf is this voice". Didn't get into it, but now I can tolerate it at the very least. I can see why a lot of people wouldn't be able to get into Inquisiton just for the vocals, but all good for me. Developed the ear for it, I guess. The riffs are just too good!
That Absu track was very good.
How about some Bathory! Classic stuff. One of my favourites:
Me listening to that:
Last edited by JurassicTunga12; 10-15-2017 at 12:41 PM.
I have been listening to this band for a while. They are hard to describe, I would say a melodic black metal. Their muse is the Eastern Orthodox church. It is all in Polish, so, I have no clue what it's actually all about other than quality brutality.
The new The Faceless album just recently came out and may have slid into my top 3 of the year. And I don't recall liking their last 2 albums too much.
I mean there's a friggin jazz flute solo at 4:00.
Here's a list of albums I really liked from the year:
Spoiler!
Artificial Brain - Infrared Horizon
Benighted - Necrobreed
Blood Freak - Total Destruction of the Human Form
Cannabis Corpse - Left Hand Pass
Couch Slut - Contempt
Decapitated - Anticult
Decrepit Birth - Axis Mundi
Entrails - World Inferno
Ex Dementia - Crack the Coffin
Exhumed - Death Revenge
Expulsion - Nightmare Future The Faceless - In Becoming a Ghost
Full of Hell - Trumpeting Ecstasy
Gigan - Undulating Waves of Rainbiotic Iridescence
Goatwhore - Vengeful Ascension
Haemorrhage - We Are the Gore Igorrr - Savage Sinusoid
Immolation - Atonement
Incantation - Profane Nexus John Frum - A Stirring in the Noos
Lock Up - Demonization
Paganizer - Land of Weeping Souls
Phobia - Lifeless God Temple of Void - Lords of Death
Witch Vomit - Poisoned Blood
