Yeah, right? It’s weird how you get those little waves all at once.
I do think festivals can play a huge part in causing them, just by bringing bands and musicians together, and serving as a showcase.
Labels do a lot of good work, but I’m not sure it hits people just how powerful these bands are until they see them in person.
I saw these not-so-gentle men kill at Wolf City in Berlin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOYDJiHlMK8
Where I also saw Indian Nightmare for the first time. They’ve utterly destroyed both times I’ve seen them
Pretty off-topic, but still kinda relevant.
The Hard Times is the mothership of the videogame blog that pwned Elon Musk on the Twitter, and they produce some of the funniest shit I’ve ever seen on the internet. Further proof here and here.
Loudness may be the Iron Maiden of Japan, but Anthem is my favorite Thunder in the East.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYfJMZ_LaeM
Matt_W
3414
Is this metal? Sorry if not. I am really really digging this new album from a band that’s been around while, but I haven’t heard before. They interestingly have 3 vocalists: Dallas Green, who does clean vocals, George Pettit who does unclean vocals, and Wade MacNeil, who can switch hit. It allows them to do melodies, harmonies, and choruses in unique ways that mesh really well with their sound.
Rich boy on his hoard of milk and honey
Kneeling at the alter of inherited money
And all the marks are in it to win it
But he’s selling yesterday’s lottery tickets
Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
“Alexisonfire are hardline socialist lefties, and conservatism is a fucking con.”
– vocalist George Pettit
So it appears Xandria is largely a new band, everyone except Marco Heubaum has been swapped out. Very new in the case of the vocalist, Ambre Vourvahis. Don’t see anything on her background with a quick search, so seems she’s fairly new on the melodic metal scene. Based on this, I’d say she’s got a bright future.
Close enough for my purposes. Listened to a few Alexisonfire songs and largely enjoyed them, thanks for the recommendation. Good change of pace for when I overdose on symphonic stuff!
Amaranthe does this too, albeit in a very different metal genre.
CraigM
3417
Thats kind of their thing, it seems.
I’m still super sad that Charlotte Wessels et. all got kicked out of Delain. They’re gonna be at ProgPower next year, alongside Kamelot, and I’m not gonna lie, the Delain/Kamelot tour where Charlotte sung on a bunch of Kamelot tracks was fuckin baller.
Moon Tooth’s Phototroph is the best record so far in 2022. Nothing comes close.
That said, the new Live double CD with Blu-ray from Black Stone Cherry filmed and recorded at the Royal Albert Hall is phenomenal. John Fred’s drums are tremendous.
Genre discussions are always the diciest.
I’d put Alexisonfire in the same bracket as Audioslave, which is hard rock, but if you take it further, then as we’ve demonstrated in this thread, there are so many hard rock/punk/psychedelic bands that have had such a fundamental influence on metal that you wouldn’t be helping anyone understand the scene by leaving them out of the discussion.
It gets especially ridiculous when you go back to the 70’s and early 80’s, especially in the UK, where some of the bands who are now called heavy metal thought they were just doing hard rock at the time.
I would say that in the vast majority of cases, Metal Archives ends up adjudicating correctly, but genre discussions are always the most passionate, tedious and esoteric, because where do you even put the emphasis?
Do you do a scholarly musical examination (yawn!) is metal more of an attitude, or is metal a society where contributing in a meaningful way means you’re in? Mileage will vary.
I’ll always have moderate beef with Metal Archives because of their rather hardline stance regarding metalcore and associated subgenres, but maybe someday their staff will fluctuate enough to include people with love and joy in their otherwise blackened hearts ;-)
You can’t claim to be a serious metalhead if you don’t have serious beef with Metal Archives over some of those calls.
That would be like calling yourself a gamer or someone who likes movies and never disagreeing with a Tom Chick review. Maybe you just don’t care about movies or games that much!
For me one of the really bad ones is Praying Mantis, who are shut out due to being hard rock, which again takes us into that special hell of “When is it hard rock, when is it metal” which can be completely impossible to define objectively.
I can point out so many bands on Metal Archives who have a far less obvious claim, but still somehow manage to be included.
ShivaX
3423
The song from the Fallen Order OST only heavier.
Edit:
New Amon Amarth.
ShivaX
3424
New Architects coming.
That opening riff is pretty great.
I’ve been listening a lot to Iron Shackles by Luzifer. It’s high concept, high fantasy heavy metal, with special attention paid to the lyrics in German and English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNTprADnOXU
A special treat is their cover of the German new wave song Der Goldene Reiter by Joachim Witt. Fricken brilliant!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=540ewNAWxlA
New Avantasia and Stratovarius songs. Which… they sound pretty much what you expect from them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLZ_za4a-88
I’ve been a bit down on Avantasia in recent years, but I quite liked that one. Any word on a release date for the new album yet?
