Ahh, I knew I’d heard the name before, but couldn’t place the music. Turns out a few years ago I had been listening to an EP called End of Days off and on for a few months through Bandcamp, but had promptly forgotten about them. The EP only had 2 tracks, one of which is a track called Pearl which I enjoy quite a bit.
I love this particular track (especially once 3:08 hits), and your reminder has me wondering why I never continued with their music. I’ll chalk it up to A.D.D. or some shit. I’ll have to go back and delve into their catalog once again.
The vocals in This Grand Show (track: Still the Desert) remind me of a band I once heard called Howling Syn (yea, they can be as terrible as the name implies, but in a good way), on a song called Night Charmers specifically. Unfortunately I seem to have the only copy of that song left in existence, as all efforts to find a stream and link it here have failed. I need to figure out a way to stream it so everybody can bask in the glory… because it truly is something (hey, I enjoy it though).
I wouldn’t mind finding more bands with these types of vocals. I dig the shit out of them.
Ok lets try these on for size, see if we can find what works for you ;)
New one from Leprous, a band I’ve enjoyed for years.
This is from their sophmore album. While they’ve been very good since, this is the song that I keep coming back to. Quite varied vocals in this song. Probably my personal favorite, and their, IMO, best album to date. However the new one seems to represent a credible challenge to that…
So I pick one of their weirder songs. But I couldn’t not link it. Muppet music video? You may note some familiarity to the shot composition in this video, a love letter to classic prog acts…
No memorable riffs or solos, mediocre lyrics, and 3 minutes and change run time. I love Metallica, but that’s not really the Metallica I love.
Cliff was awesome, but it’s not fair to credit him solely with the band’s early greatness—especially over James who wrote the majority of the material. Honestly, even if Cliff had lived I don’t think it’s fair to assume they would have continued churning out the unbelievable quality of those first four albums.
If we had years of James, Cliff, and Dave Mustaine writing albums together that would have been something to see though.
I’m gonna need some time to digest all of the recent releases and see how they hold up on multiple listens. But on first impressions, the past week (if we cheat and also throw in last Friday) might have been the best slate since I started paying attention.
I wasn’t familiar with Inquisition, but so far so good. In addition, all of the following have made very positive first impressions on me:
Dark Forest - Beyond the Veil: These guys came out of nowhere with some of the best NWOBHM I’ve heard in years. Immediately checked out their previous album and it’s also very good.
Darkher - Realms: Another killer British unknown, this one specializing in folky doom metal with haunting female vocals.
SubRosa - For This We Fought the Battle of Ages: Superficially similar to the above, but a bit of a more traditional doomy vibe, with lengthy, complex songs driven by a pair of electric violins.
Sabaton - The Last Stand: I was slightly underwhelmed with this year’s Amon Amarth and Iron Savior records, so it was nice to have an album live up to its anticipation. This doesn’t break any new ground away from their trademark gloriously ridiculous martial bombast, but it’s fun as hell and will send you scrambling to Wikipedia.
Can’t remember another week when I really liked five new albums, and I still need to check out King, Imperium Dekadenz, and Delain.
You look at the metal bands from those days and they all sound like you’d expect. Megadeth, Slayer, Iron Maiden, Priest all still sound great.
Metallica just changed after Cliff died. I heard he was responsible for a lot of the melodies and Metallica’s song writing just went off the deep end. The Black Album wasn’t a horrible album, but you could feel Cliff’s loss. Since then Metallica has been more of a hard rock band than a true metal band.
It’s like whatever deal with the devil they made to get good had an expiration date.
Thanks for the awesome SubRosa, Darkher, and Dark Forest recommendations. Really digging all three.
And yes, the new Sabaton record is excessively solid. It’s early yet, but may be my favorite since Carolus Rex!
I’ve also got to say (partially because I’m planning to go see them this fall) that the new Soilwork rarities collection, Death Resonance, is pretty damned solid. Feels like a good sort of career retrospective,
Well, ever since being reminded of Grayceon I’ve been listening to them non-stop. I ended up buying all the stuff they have available on Amazon (except for one album which is free on Amazon Prime streaming), and it’s been great.
I love experimental metal, but typically the biggest problem I have with a lot of exprimental bands are shitty vocals. I don’t have that problem here, so it’s been quite fun exploring the rest of their catalog.
Thanks again for posting about this group, geat re-discovery. I’m still ranking the track, Pearl, as my favorite so far.
Well I suppose I can take a break from listening to nothing but the Blind Guardian and Grave Digger back catalogues in preparation for Tuesday’s concert to dig into some new DTP!
Mmmmm, this is pretty tasty.
Also, in the next ~3 months:
Sep 13 - Blind Guardian + Grave Digger
Sep 19 - Wilderun + Aether Realm
Oct 17 - Soilwork + Unearth
Nov 06 - Sonata Arctica + Leaves Eyes
Nov 27 - Dream Theater (??? Super Expensive)
Dec 14 - Children of Bodom + Exmortus OR Trans-Siberian Orchestra
This is officially the Fall of Metal, ladies and gentlemen. I am fucking prepared. My eardrums may not be, but fuck those weakass things anyway.
No idea, but it’s gonna be a sick show regardless. This fall’ll be my first times seeing Soilwork, Unearth, and Exmortus, if all those shows go off without a hitch for me. But hell, this’ll be my 4th time seeing Blind Guardian live in ~15 years of fanboying hard for them, and I’m just as excited about it as I was the first time around!
That’s quite a slate – I’m jealous. I’ve been meaning to try and get to a live show or two for a while now (so far the only metal band I’ve seen live was Ozzy’s show when I was working at BlizzCon).
Blind Guardian, Sabaton, and Amon Amarth are all going to be passing through during the 2-week period that I’m out of town in a few weeks, which is a bummer. That Sonata Arctica show is intriguing. I’m not super familiar with them, but have liked the bits that I’ve heard, and more importantly for their show here they also have Omnium Gatherum playing, which I would love to see.
Sadly the Amon Amarth and Sabaton tours aren’t coming anywhere near me (though I’ve been lucky enough to see them once and twice, respectively), but yeah, NC is bizarrely graced this year. I probably haven’t planned to attend so many shows since I lived in Boston and trained out to the bitter-cold shithole known as Worcester, MA every couple of weeks to kick it at the Palladium. . . good times :-D
