Metal Reviews

So which bands have stood the test of time for you? What bands are becoming a new favourite and are here to stay, or, on the other hand, are becoming less significant as time passes by? You can either make a list of your current favourites, or the timeless bands that have been on your play-list since the beginning...

Tool fall off my playlist for extended periods of time because they take so long to release a new album, but whenever they do I start playing them compulsively for years. And they're one of the first bands I got into. So yeah, them.

My top 5 bands for much of the last 10 years has not changed much. Nightwish, Savatage, Blind Guardian, Virgin Steele and Rush.

Top 5 currently (based on how much I have been playing and enjoying them) though would be: Gamma Ray, Shining (the jazzy one), Anathema, Porcupine Tree and Skyclad.

Only Iron Maiden at the top - rest are interchangeable:


TOP 6
1. Iron Maiden - fave since 1996 (used to be Metallica before that but Load changed that).
2. Megadeth - since about 1997
3. Nevermore - since 2000
4. Iced Earth - since 1999
5. Pantera - since 1997
6. Slayer - since 1997


BANDS I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO A LONG, LONG TIME
Metallica - since 1992
Iron Maiden - since 1993
Alice In Chains - since 1992
Guns N Roses - since 1992



BANDS I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO FOR 10 -15 YEARS AND STILL NOT TIRED OFF.
Most of the rest of my collection including all the Thrash, Melodic DM. Symphonic Goth Metal, Death Metal, Power Metal, Heavy Metal, Hard Rock.


BANDS I'VE GOT INTO OVER LAST 5 YEARS AND ACTUALLY LIKE
Cavalera Conspiracy - excellent
Soulfly - later stuff excellent
High On Fire - excellent
Evile - ok
Bonded By Blood - ok
Lamb of God - excellent

MORAL OF THE STORY
As an old man of 31 I tend to listen to stuff I liked as a yoof. A lot of this new fangled metal doesn't stick with me too well.

Well, bands that I currently like to listen to:

Rush (Geddy, Alex and Neil worked at perfect and achieved it. The only band that will probably ever come along to satisfy my pop and hard rock sensibilities across a career.)

Labyrinth / Vision Divine (This is my go-to school of music. I played guitar with the same mannerisms as Olaf years before I heard them and was desperate to find singers like Luppi, Lione and Tyranti to learn from due their amazing ranges and sickeningly sweet tones they can produce.)

Dream Theater (Took a long time, but eventually fell in love with their music and the vocals especially. I'm a huge Labrie fan. I don't have a natural voice. I have the James Labrie impression that came really naturally when I was an 18 year old chump with the worst falsetto ever.)

Kiss (They have a ton of songs I still love. I never got too deep into their albums so I'm still finding gems. Paul is an amazing songwriter and a very good singer. You guessed it, One of the first voices I started singing in back when I was 14 years old. I'm glad no one that lived within earshot owned a gun.)

Ronnie James Dio (The master. He gave me my first taste of real classic heavy metal when I was 16. I heard Wishing Well on MusicChoice and Rainbow In The Dark on the radio in the same weekend. It made a huge impact.)

Boston (Tom Scholz is my role model. He makes records the way I would. Superb songwriting, engineering and a very melodic guitarist. I loved every song Tom ever wrote)

Chicago / Peter Cetera (Another vocal hero with a 5-octave range. taught me the power of a great falsetto. Sensational songwriter and one of the best bassists around. Chicago 17 and Solitude/Solitaire remain two of my favorite records. I didn't really care about 70's Chicago though. I like the rest of the 80's hits after Cetera left too.)

Big Country (Completely reinvigorated my wont for Pop music.I picked up the debut Vinyl as payment with a few other "shitty records" for doing some chore that probably took 5 minutes at the record store.He happened to have the DVD Video Collection, so I thought I'd check out the album first. I still treasure this stuff. Imagine Thin Lizzy...now imagine Maiden...now imagine the opposite direction and you'll run into BC)

Angra (Another band that does everything right, I haven't tried to listen to Andre's stuff yet other than AC and really have put off the two latest like I am saving them for a rainy day.)

Bands I currently am not listening to now, but I keep the albums around because I still enjoy their music:

Alice In Chains (wrong mood, best songs lost their sparkle)
Slipknot (not eager to sing along to this anymore)
Children Of Bodom (I really liked playing Guitar along with them)

"Retired" Bands that aren't likely to get played again:

Metallica (Heard it to death, also James's terrible singing technique, even if the results are quite good in the old days)

Danzig (Just over it. Too much self pity and testosterone)

Prong (Over it. Tommy's Vocal style)

Tool (Haven't cared in years. A bore to sing. I was fan before I sang my first Rush song and before I owned my first guitar.)

Incubus (Been there, did that, had a much lower tolerance for indulgences when I was 16. Impossible to recreate teenage perception of their music)



(Holy fuck at the length...sorry)

Timeless:
Judas Priest
old Queensryche
Manilla Road
Kreator
Autopsy
Immolation
Emperor
Destroyer 666
Blind Guardian
Overkill
Solitude Aeturnus
Pagan Altar
Mercyful Fate
Bathory and many others

Becoming less significant: Dark Tranquillity, Anathema, new Queensryche

New(er) favourites: Deathspell Omega, Cage, In Solitude, Doomsword, Mithras, Reverend Bizarre

These days I mostly listen to Opeth and Amon Amarth.. Judas Priest and Metallica are standing the test of time but I'm losing interest in Iced Earth which was my favorite band for a good decade.

Maybe it's because of age or something but I haven't found new bands to rave about for quite a long time now. It seems my fav' artists are pretty much set in stone.
According to Last FM, here are the 20 artists I listened the more since january 2007:

- John Zorn
- The Beatles
- Rush
- Serge Gainsbourg
- Genesis
- Fish
- John Coltrane
- Jacques Brel
- Uriah Heep
- Jacques Higelin
- Peter Gabriel
- Emilie Simon
- XTC
- Steve Hackett
- Peter Hammill
- Yes
- Judas Priest
- Michel Polnareff
- Queensrÿche
- Electric Light Orchestra

Many bands that are still among my favorites (Metallica, Iron Maiden, Thin Lizzy, Led Zeppelin, Van der Graaf Generator, etc.) are not in the list because I've played them so much I rarely have a urge to listen to their music anymore... or in much smaller doses than I used to.

Dream Theater
Hypocrisy
Gorgoroth
Dimmu Borgir
Emperor
Drudkh
Mayhem
At The Gates
Bathory
Megadeth
Tool
The Mars Volta
Lamb of God
Alice in chains
Opeth

Vivaldi
Bach
Beethoven
Schumann
Wagner
Brahms
Sibelius
Dvorak
Tool
Insomnium
King Crimson
Camel
Arcana
Enslaved
Emperor
Ihsahn
Deep Purple
Colosseum
Skepticism
Primordial
Rotting Christ
Agalloch
Iron Maiden
Opeth
Moonsorrow
Ulver
Testament
Windir
Winds (Norway)
Tenhi
Melechesh
Pink Floyd
Mercyful Fate
Wolves In The Throne Room
Drudkh

For now...

all time favorite: Rammstein

current top 10 bands:
Agalloch
daughters
Enslaved
Agoraphobic nosebleed
Moonspell
katatonia
genghis Tron
Underoath
Napalm death
Cattle decapitation

Slough Feg
Danzig
Megadeth

Those are the three bands which to some degree are always getting played by me. Other bands I go in waves kinda revolving around album releases.

The newer Katatonia would have made my list but I got tired of them after a while; well, after playing "The Great Cold Distance" a lot! I guess that was the only album I found worthwhile to listen to. Their last album was good but I got tired of it after 5-6 listens. Maybe I should re-listen to it... Well re-listen to their more rock-based period.
Destroyer 666 and Mayhem are up there for me too.

You'll realise the truth eventually.

For me, Rush are the one band I can put on in any mood and fulfil whatever musical craving I have that I'm not even aware of. Like Adveser, I think they're perfect - I know I'm going to be listening to these albums for the rest of my life and discovering new things each time I do. Wonderful feeling to have about a band.

The only other bands I can see approaching this level for me are King Crimson, Pink Floyd and Genesis. Taking the first two chronologically, as long-term readers will know from the sporadic reviews, and I really need to rekindle my interest in Genesis - Selling England is wonderful.

Otherwise, agreed with Noodles when he mentions Tool - I go on sprees in certain moods, but they're quite boring in atmospheric terms compared to Rush, are incapable of doing more than one thing. Great musicians, of course. Opeth and Dream Theater are metal bands that I'll always have time for, but where I can see myself listening to DT for years to come, I can't see the same for Opeth - however, I think Opeth's best work is yet to come, whilst I don't think DT will surpass themselves again. Enslaved and Napalm Death will always be good, as will the likes of Ulver and Arcturus and the other classic post-Black Norsk bands.

Well the thing with Slipknot is that I have always been very good at those voices, dead on accurate to Corey's voice. You guys heard it four years ago. You couldn't figure out which voice was whose other than my pitchiness, even if I was terrible at Power Metal at the time. Two way different styles that developed at far different rates obviously, one being nearly impossible to master, the other being far easier and natural. This isn't Bravado, it explains why I have liked them for so long. When all else failed, I could sing along and know that one way or another I would have something useable. I would go from feeling like a loser that couldn't do anything right to being two strokes under par of what many have labelled (erroneously) the best of his generation.

I think it's good music, but I more or less can't get the feeling of satisfaction learning the songs. I would play guitar to them, but that too has come and gone as a satisfying option. Once I can't interact with the music, it becomes "dead" in a way. I know in the back of my mind listening to it won't have any benefit and like I've been saying I am not a casual listener to anything anymore.

All time favorites: Moonspell, Septicflesh, Suffocation, Dark tranquillity, Black Sabbath, Mayhem, Kreator, Early Slayer, Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Savatage, Neurosis,

As for listening to newer bands that list is far too large to post.

Black Sabbath
Overkill
Megadeth
Slough Feg
Iron Maiden
Judas Priest
Motorhead
Mercyful Fate

Only two thrash bands? I'm surprised. Good list, except for Slough Feg, never managed to get into them.

Mercyful fate would be up there for me, but I didn't listen to them during my formative years of the music. I also forgot to add God dethroned, Vader, and Darkthrone, it's odd for me though as I dwelt on certain albums and not discographies as a whole. I'll never bother checking out Darkthrone's latest material, as Hate them was boring and from what I heard off of Too old, too cold it sounded like dogshit. If only older bands had a certain consistency which arguably Darkthrone has, but their crust punk even while it isn't stylistically that much different than black metal is nothing compared to their bm material.

Timeless favourites:

Iron Maiden - None above. Influenced my life, but I rarely listen nowadays.

Dream Theater - Even if they're a shitty band now and have been for a while, I have listened a heck of a lot to them and they've influenced my songwriting skills a great deal.

Converge - Same as the above, they taught me how to write music I didn't think I would ever be capable of writing. Haven't listened in ages though.

Black Sabbath - The reason for Metal.

Heathen - Hands down my favourite thrash band of all time.

Exodus - Got me into thrash singlehandedly with Tempo of the Damned actually. Not their best album, but introduced me to the genre.

Pagan's Mind - Maybe the first band I discovered by myself after listening to Iron Maiden only for five years. Also the first metal review I read was about Enigmatic: Calling I think.

Overkill - What can you say. The most consistent band of all time. Writes the best thrash metal around.

Death - Words not needed

The Crown - Deathrace King is such a fantastic album.

Drudkh - Yes I do like black metal. This band is fantastic.

Rush - I love their whole discography except maybe Presto.

Yes - Before they went commercial this was the best prog rock band around.

Dark Quarterer - Prog/Doom/Heavy, also fantastic

Brocas Helm - Into Battle might be top 5 ever for me.

Mercyful Fate - Yeah. Fantastic.

Also:

Black Flag
Dead Kennedys
Jeff Beck
Rory Callagher
Stevie Ray Vaughan
The Clash
Sex Pistols
T-Rex
Discharge
Pagan Altar

Earlier favourites that I can't stand anymore whether new or old albums:

In Flames - Such a terrible band. Tried listening to Reroute the other day. Turned off in disgust.

Children of Bodom - Yeah, that was back in the heyday as well I remember. Tried Follow the Reaper. Couldn't stomach it.

Sonata Arctica - Remember having a hard-on for this band. Just no. This band sucks so hard it's not even funny. Even Silence, even fucking Ecliptica. Ugh.

Metallica - Obvious reasons. They should retire.

There's definitely more in this category, and Kamelot might fit in, but I still enjoy Epica.

Current favourites I can't stop listening to

Circus Maximus
Overkill
Heathen
Kreator
The Chariot
Lunar Aurora
Altar of Plagues
Slayer
Slough Feg

Newly Discovered:

Circus Maximus
Moonsorrow