Metal Reviews

I guess for me it, quite bizarrely it was the Darkness' Christmas single that started me down the road to metaldom four years ago. Weird

probably Ozzy Osbourne's "I Don't Know"

I guess Now I'm Here by Queen would be my best answer. Hey, at the time (11 1/2 years ago) I actually DID think it was metal.

I know what you mean. Everyone goes through a phase where they think anything with loud-ish guitars is Metal

For me it was weirdly enough Manowar's "Heart of Steel." It showed me that metal had emotion and wasnt all just fast guitars. I really never looked back since then.

Maiden's Phantom of the Opera

Nevermore -- I, Voyager

Something sparked an interest to begin with, but that was the song that ultimately did it for me.

Alien Ant Farm - Smooth Criminal

It was a long and convoluted path.

Slipknot - Wait and Bleed.

To underground metal? Nile-Opening of the Mouth. Thought it was shit at first with the burpy vocals and all. But the doublebass was relentless, the guitar tone devestating, and the solo lightning fast. Plus the whole Egypt thing was pretty interesting to a neophyte, in particular.

Dream Theater--This Dying Soul

Actually, it was really the entire Train of Thought CD, but I recall that as being one of my favorite songs. I guess if I go back even further, it could have been "Back in Black" by AC/DC if you really consider that metal.

I can't remember the exact song, but I know it was SOMETHING by system of a down, because they're the first semi-metal anything that I touched.

Back in 91, I heard a Metallica ballad which I liked. Either Unforgiven or Nothing Else Matters, I forget which one. So I recorded the whole Black Album from a friend's tape, and after a few listenings it kind of grew on me and I started to like it. I got hooked on metal, so I bought Metallica's back catalogue and also Painkiller, Seasons In The Abyss, Better Off Dead, Kings Of Metal and Extreme Aggression. These albums marked my complete introduction to metal.

It's a combination of many songs and bands but if I were to name one song I'd say Metallica - Fuel. Man I loved that song, I still think it's great.

Black Sabbath - Paranoid. I saw the clip on MTV and that one made me addicted to metal.

I should probably mention my first "Metal Album" was Load. When I first bought and listened to it (back in February, 2000 - I bought it with some of the money my aunt gave me for reaching Eagle Scout rank), it was just so different from the music I was used to listening to at the time that I needed to listen to it a few times to really adjust to its sound. A few months earlier, I had to admit to being a metal fan (I used to try hard to dislike it because I wanted to be one of those overly emotional heart-throb like teenagers listening to romanting/soothing music) and I knew Metallica was the most popular metal band out there. So Load was a blind purchase for me since it was at the top of the record stack at Harmony House. After listening to it probably about four times, it really grew on me and I started listening to it every day. Then I bought (in this order) Master Of Puppets, The Black Album, ReLoad, And Justice For All, and Ride The Lightning, and loved all those albums (except may be Ride... which just had this really desperate sound to it that kind of bugged me). I intermixed them with some classic rock Greatest Hits compilations as well (Queen, Billy Joel, Ted Nugent and Aerosmith, respectively) and I'll confess: I also bought the Marshall Mathers LP because I wanted to get into mainstream music (but couldn't even sit through half of it without falling asleep).

My first non-Metallica album was Countdown To Extinction. I bought it alongside Garage, Inc. about 11 months after buying Load. From then on, I was a full-fledged metalhead.

Within Temptation - Dark Wings

Everything before that sounded like crap and for some reason after I heard this song I went download and purchase crazy and everything I thought was stupid was suddenly awesome.

Dimmu Borgir-Mourning Palace

Iron Maiden - The Wicker Man

I guess it gets the blame, although the first four songs of Brave New World struck me as something I'd never heard the likes of before. Epic, melancholy, uplifting...it took a while for me to realise how much I liked these four songs (my friend gave me aloan of the CD and I only taped the first four for some reason).

The song that first converted me to a metal band was Whiplash by Metallica; it just blew me away with its speed and frantic nature. However, I'm not sure I would say that it was the song that converted me to metal; I became a Metallica fan afterwards, and bought a few of their albums, but had no interest in anything else in the genre, or in checking anything else out.

One day, however, a month or two before its release, my friend played me the song "The Art of Balance" by Shadows Fall. A ballad, but I completely loved it, bought Of One Blood and then The Art of Balance when it came out, and more importantly, went on the Shadows Fall message board and became interested in bands that had influenced Shadows Fall. So I got into In Flames and Dark Tranquillity and the entire Gothenburg scene; from there I moved onto bands like Children of Bodom, Iced Earth and Blind Guardian... and then I met a band called Kreator and fell in love with thrash metal.