Metal Reviews

I personally can't stand categorization, labelling, and stereotyping of music. I rarely look at the "genre" description at all. I see it all as metal. Plain and simple. If I want to personally get a feel for what the band sounds like I go to their web-site or someplace like CD Universe or Amazon to sample the music. Once I hear it then I know what I'm dealing with.

METAL METAL METAL....that's all I need to know.

This is surprising to read.... there are so many CDs released each month and I'm MORE than overwhelmed just dealing with power metal. It's hard enough find time to listen to samples of power metal bands, I can't imagine wasting countless hours on death metal or progressive metal (for 2 examples).

Clint

Well that's usually how I do it. I just hate trying to nail down a band's sound within a certain genre. I listen and make my own judgements.

BTW this CD is still in my car CD player. I can't get enough of Sabaton.

That's why I say that instead of manufacturing subgenres for every single release, it's easier to give an approximate short description of the style of music in that line. For the same reason, it's very important for the reviewers to remember to expand on that description in their reviews and even most importantly to try and give comparisons and similarities to other known bands or musicians.
So if I read (for example) that Manticora sounds like a mix of Blind Guardian and Iced Earth I know what to expect more easily than reading that they play Melodic Power Metal eventhough that description is not wrong.

I think if you trust a reviewer's descriptions, you can avoid listening for yourself some of the time. Hopefully there are reviewers out there you feel you can trust.




Agreed.... I personally think band comparisons is the best way to nail down a band's style.

Clint

NP: new Circle ll Circle

My dad wondered if it's morally ok to make music based on something as extreme as the WWII or the holocust...

Then I think he would have a problem with pretty much every history book since the 1950s, every college class that taught about the holocaust, every war movie that took place during WWII, not to mention the history channel. As for Sabaton:

1. They aren't making very much money off their music (unfortunately( anyway, I'm pretty sure of that.

2. Just cause they mention the holocaust and WWII in their songs does not mean that they are necceessarily in favor of something as horrible as the holocaust.

3. If they mentioned the Japanese imprisonment in America (not AS bad as the holocaust, but still unjustly similar in some ways and really unfair), I don't think anyone at all would care.....cept maybe Japanese metalheads.

uuhh.... what ? You can make everything else about those subjects, why not music ? Actually your dad's question feels so weird I'm not even sure what he really means. Has he been living away from all kinds of media during the last decades ?
... aah nevermind, this sounds like a multi-page subject deserving its own thread so maybe I'll stop here!

So I take it Schindler's List is banned in your house?

That is a very silly notion.

That is not a slam toward you or your father; however the idea of not being able to create some form of accurate editorial of history in the form of music, film, or written word is ridiculous.

Moral? That train of thought would lead us into dangerous waters.

Ask your dad then if it's morally ok to be making music about people getting raped by elephants.

Ive just listened to both Primo victoria and Attero Dominatus for the first time, and i must say im really impressed, the vocals are great and so is the music, first class Power Metal.

No, it wasn't because of that. He wondered if it was possible to try to put something as out of proportionate as the holocaust into music. Just because the holocaust isn't that simple to define. My dad's a philospher, there's probably a deeper reasoning of his behind this.

Of course it's possible. Sabaton already did. And so did many more.

Ask your dad again what he exactly meant to say.
Maybe he sees music as pure entertainment?

No, he's also a musicologist of sorts, and teaches lessons on various characteristics of Beethoven, for example.