Metal Reviews

So fellow metallers, how did you get into heavy metal? And how have your listening habits changed.

For me:

1992 (I was 12 years old) - Acquire Poison's "Open Up And Say... Ahh" at garage sale. Was so bad I got rid of it 2 weeks later.

Acquire Guns N Roses "Use Your Illusion II" and Metallica's "Ride The Lightning."

1993-1995
Add bands such as Iron Maiden and Megadeth to list . Also added grungy stuff ala Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, early Silverchair and also rap rock ala Rage Against The Machine.

In this period you couldn't even find Iron Maiden in the shops lets alone more underground stuff. Survive on taping things from other people.

1996-98
Get into Pantera, Slayer and Sepultura. Also discover melodic DM ala In Flames and Dark Tranquillity as well as Cradle of Filth and Iced Earth thanks to the Internet.

1999-2001
Discover a shop that stocks old Thrash early 1990's Death Metal and get tons of Kreator, Testament and Overkill and other cool stuff like that. Melodic DM continues to be a favourite.

2001-2005
Force myself into listening to extreme Death Metal (e.g. Nile, Vital Remains) and Black Metal (e.g. early 1990s Dark Throne, Mayhem).

Entering a massive drunken phase, I convinced myself that I should be a True Extreme Metaller and that listening to anything else was selling out especially if it was popular. Yet I didn't like the music. Moral of the story: stay sober most of the time.

Yes I was immature for a 21-25 year old.

Bizarrely I went to a lot of rock n roll gigs featuring bands that tried to sound like the Hellacopters.


2005-2010
Cleaned myself up and found my inner metal head. Went back to the stuff I loved. Also acknowledged that listening to commerical stuff ala Lamb Of God wasn't a sin and happily embraced non-metal stuff.

Hmm, dunno if I can be quite as accurate as you in terms of dates.

It starts in the mid-90's sometime, when I become hopelessly obsessed with Deep Purple. I'm about 10 years old.

Then the progression is kind of two-fold.

On the one hand, my love for Deep Purple evolves into a love for anything Blackmore, which leads me to Rainbow, which leads me to Dio.

On the other hand, around the same time, my brother who is 6 years older than me, is listening to nothing but Metallica, Sepultura and Pantera. He owns Roots, Against, Master of Puppets, And Justice For All, Vulgar Display of Power and Far Beyond Driven. I absorb all of that, usually listening to his CDs.

A couple of years go by, i'm 12 or 13, I discover Megadeth, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest.

I absorb all of that. Then I become stagnant for several years, listening mostly to classic rock and prog rock, with all the above being my only metal.

Then when I'm about 17 I realise my love for Metallica and Pantera is boundless. I start to purchase their discographies and the later stuff by Pantera like Great Southern Trendkill makes me realise i like it really heavy.

So I start to use the internet and look up which heavy music is worth listening to. I try a variety of things and discover thrash is far and away my favourite kind of heavy music.

I indulge.

Now i have almost 200 thrash albums, plus probably 70 or 80 of other metal genres, mainly traditional and nwobhm.

I'm sure we have this thread every other week, but whateva - I'm a relatively recent convert compared to you guys - hearing that Wake Me Up Inside Evanescence song on the radio one time woke me up to the power of the riff, and then I just went more or less from Iron Maiden to Darkthrone. Came back, explored stuff between, and after getting into the more jazzy/progressive/avant-garde side of things, there is now very little metal that I don't at least dabble in, keeping my palate clean with other genres.

In high school I was a nerdy kid who loved scifi and fantasy and hating the world, then discovered music that sounded like video game music and sang about scifi and fantasy and hating the world so I thought it was pretty cool.

Srsly when I was 12 or something I heard Tool's Intermission and Jimmy and thought the transition between the two was hilarious and awesome. Then I listened to nothing but Tool, Rage Against the Machine, Sublime, Nine Inch Nails and Radiohead until grade 10 or so. Then around the same time I a) got told about Opeth from a friend, b) found Frontline Assembly and Ministry albums in a stack my sister gave me and started getting into industrial metal jams, and c) found Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing and thought it was a hilarious album name so I bought it and listening to it I laughed a couple times then after a while started getting into the pure h8 of the music. Then my friend told me about rateyourmusic and I read some people's reviews on there and downloaded albums they thought were awesome, then I discovered Lord_Chimp on amazon and listened to lots of prog metal that he loved. Sometime after that I got laid and realized growling was a pretty lame thing to do and that being technical isn't all that special so I stopped listening to all but the best death metal, thus becoming one of those annoying 'used to listen to metal' types. Now I mostly listen to Slough Feg and Zebulon Pike.

Ok. I never would have guessed that Evanescene alerted you to the existence of such bands as Napalm Death.

And I never EVER EVER would have guessed I was listening to Pantera and Sepultura before you ever cared who they were.

Makes me feel special.

It wasn't them directly, of course, but listening around and exploring this 'metal' thing online with sites like this led to greater bands.

Internet has made life so much easier when it comes to finding metal.

When I was first getting into it, the only way of finding out stuff was official magazines ala Metal Hammer and the now defunct Hot Metal and fanzines. And it was hard finding out how to get the fanzines too!

By about 1993 all the official magazines were obsessed with grunge anyway so they weren't a good way of finding out stuff about Thrash or Death Metal except vague little blurbs or advertisments.

Even the national youth radio station's metal show, Full Metal Racket, generally played Oz Rock ala Spiderbait and grunge ala Stonetemple Pilots and Pearljam.

The shops in my area were just as bad - you could get the commercial ones ala Metallica or Guns N Roses but anything more obscure was unavailable. Ordering stuff incurred a massive surcharge - an "import" cd/tape cost about $10-$20 more than a standard one due to low volumes and now-defunct government tariffs on music imports.


It's also why Thank You lists in inlay cards were important. Bands generally toured with similar bands so you could use the inlay card to find out about other bands.

Nowadays it's all available at the touch of a button. You can use the net to find out about a band, download a sample song or two and then order the album online.

Heck you can even download entire back catalogues down without ever spending a single dollar on a cd.

Yeah before I started downloading music I was happy only knowing about 10 different bands and listening to them over and over again. Now I know like 1500 different bands but listen to the same 20 over and over.

early 90s, dad was a truck driver.

I use to go with him on trips.

he listened to Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Motorhead, Rainbow, Led Zeppelin, Judas Priest, Metallica, ZZ Top, Thin Lizzy, etc..

I really liked the Metallica, so I stole his cassettes.

listened the shit out of them, making them unlistenable.

got away from the rock/metal world because my babysitter was hugely into pop music and me being a stupid young kid I followed suit.

got into Limp Bizkit, Korn(only a little bit), Blink 182, The Offspring and the likes.

got into grade 8 and had the best music class ever where all we did was talk about the history of rock n roll for over an hour.

made a list of bands I knew.

went home and raided my parents cd and cassette collections. coming out with stuff like Van Halen, Rush, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Ozzy, Scorpions, Motley Crue, Janes Addiction, The Who, Steppenwolf, etc..

listened the shit out of these cds/tapes.

liked the Van Halen and the Black Sabbath ones the best (Van Halen 1, Women and Children First, and Paranoid).

got to high school and met this older kid named adam who was a big Metallica, Slayer, and Maiden fan.

he let me borrow his cds in exchange for "my" cds.

dad took me on my 16th bday and bought me most of Judas Priests back catalogue.

took me on my 17th bday to the 4 floor HMV in downtown toronto where I spent easily over 300$ on cds. buying everything from Anthrax to Bruce Dickinson to Alice Cooper.

and the rest is history.

Wait, you like Metal?

My Dad, when he wasn't drowning in Mahler or Schönberg, used to listen to Pink Floyd and Black Sabbath, two bands he passed on to me. Then my cousin lent me his copy of Iron Maiden's Rock in Rio and Nirvana's best of. I hated Nirvana, loved Maiden, and went from there. I was about 14. Then came a massive period of listening only to "true" metal or hard rock. Eventually I realized that was stupid, so I opened my tastes. Became infatuated with metalcore for a short period, before it became boring. Sometime last year I discovered Blur and Oasis, and with them entered the world of Britpop and later Indie. Metal now occupies the least time in my weekly listening schedule. I still love it, though, and Sonata Arctica still have a special place in my heart.

Who said I was an addict? Seriously just because I have 500 metal CD's doesn't mean I'm an addict

Seriously I'm offended

Prog rock-pop rock-hard rock-metal my progression.

what a great post, keep them coming.

From a person who still listens to a lot metal...

1999-2000 Moves from Korn to Deftones to Sepultura
Summer 2000 Uses the last gasp wonders of Napster to explore bands mentioned on the Beyond Korn Forum: In Flames, Samael, Opeth, Nile, Hypocrisy, and Emperor.
2000-2002 With Swedish melodic death metal as a gateway, I thoroughly explore Norwegian Black and English Doom-Death for the rest of my high school years.
2002-present day
I go through spurts and dry spells, but my favorite music remains metal, and I don't ever see classical replacing it. I'd like to think I am pretty open to all non-hardcore tainted subgenres...but ever since I got laid I've preferred growling
550 cds owned plus a hundred 150 burns would suggest addiction, I suppose!

Hmmm...
I'll list only the watershed moments.


1972 - 1978
Raised on Black Sabbath, Zeppelin, ELP, Blue Oyster Cult, Rainbow, Deep Purple, Frank Marino, Kiss, Van Halen, etc

1979
fellow stoner turns me onto Judas Priest - Stained Class over bong hits while skipping school.
continue with Sabbath, but seek out more Priest

1981-82
start discovering NWOBHM (Tygers, Diamond Head, Angel Witch, etc.), beginning with Maiden; also discover Scorpions
Also, hear Motorhead for the first time.
Saxon - Strong Arm Of The Law


1983
Venom
Mercyful Fate (Black Masses single)
Anvil
Exciter (I remember the Shrapnel label logo had a tank on it), Manowar and Slayer; also Metallica (yawn)
meanwhile I am listening to more NWOBHM, Metal Massacre comp's etc. and heavily into tape trading, while my younger bros. are into hardcore punk and Deathrock, so I got some of that, too.

1984
MELISSA, then OATH
Hellhammer and later that winter, Celtic Frost
Exodus
Accept

1985 - 1988
King Diamond
Possessed,
Running Wild
more tape trading, too many bands at this point to remember.
Death, Kreator, Destruction, Whiplash, Bathory, Blood Feast, etc etc...

1989 - 1990
Pretty much more of the same, with notable discovery Sepultura and Dark Angel

onward...

1991-1994
Morbid Angel
Deicide
Obituary
Cannibal Corpse (yawn)
and etc.
this Death Metal delving lasted until...

1995 (late winter)
Emperor
Mayhem
Darkthrone
Gorgoroth
and from there the gates to the BM underground were blown wide open, revealing an endlessly daunting task of seperating the wheat from the chaff that would carry on for over a decade.
This in some ways changed how I listened to metal.

1996
Burzum
Carpathian Forest
Satyricon
Dark Funeral
Cradle of Filth (yeah I know they aren't black metal; it was the first lesson in the difference between label and reality, as they were deemed "Black Metal Gods" across the internet. Still I rather enjoyed Vempire / Dusk, for what it was)
Limbonic Art
Gehenna
Ulver
Dimmy Borgir
Deinonychus
Legion of Doom
Arcturus
and so on...

then for awhile, I did nothing but seek out more and more Black Metal, and with the advent of the Internet, it was very interesting, and living a few miles from Rasputin records (those in NorCal know what I am talking about), I had that world at my fingertips.
Went through countless CDs, most of them second - to - third rate, some outstanding, some horrible.

mid 2000's
continue my quest for Black metal, but discover My Dying Bride...
this opens up another door; DOOM.

NSBM, USBM, Les Legion Noire, Eastern European / Slavic BM and more BM, Doom, Funeral Doom...blahblahblah... you all know the rest, or can figure it out.

Tried to make each band listing in the order of discovery but, it was a long time ago, and my memory ain't what it used to be, ironically, since I didn't need it then.

Hm.

Indie music---->alt. rock/grunge/punk---->classic rock---->classic metal---->extreme metal

I guess would be the progression.

I was not interested in any kind of music until 1982-83. Then, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Scorpions, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Barón Rojo, the music my old brother listened to. In high school, that and a lot of spanish punk.
After, a lot of tape trading, thrash metal, classic and NWOBHM.
When grunge comes, some grunge mixed with heavy. After, I wasn't interested in anything new and only listened to old cd's and tapes.
Around 2001-2002, started to listen again a lot of metal, discovering black metal and using internet to discover a lot of bands. Until now.

Seriously... that was fucking funny... perhaps you're not so worthless after all...

Now do you have something productive to add? Or are you going to continue to spew hate rhetoric at me? You seem to know me so well... perhaps you know at this point I really don't give a shit what everyone here thinks of me. Perhaps most of all, you. I realize you don't like me... I don't particularly care for you either. But last I checked, you're not a very important individual at all, so I have no reason to put any weight in anything you have to say. Especially your negative bullshit. I know not everyone here hates me, because I've had great conversations with some of the members of this forum that I respect. You are not one of them.

The very minute I saw it was you who had responded I knew for a fucking fact it was going to be the least helpful information available... and what do you know? I was goddamn right. For fuck's sake... you're predictable as hell.

You see, this is a public internet forum... where people have discussions... In case this is news to you, I was provoking a harmless discussion from people who know good metal. FUCKING SUE ME! You know... last I checked, your post content isn't fucking gold itself, so who the fuck are you to go around and dictate who is a good poster and who isn't.

Shove the fuck off orion. You know... if you don't like me, then why follow me around and berate me all the time? Most people would just ignore users they don't like... you've obviously got some insecurities you need to work out. I would get on that and stop worrying about my existence here on metalreviews. Fucking moron.

Like you had something productive to add here:

http://www.metalreviews.com/phpBB2/view ... sc&start=0

This has obviously been brewing a while, so I'll step back and let the steam blow off, but please don't spread this all across the forum, guise. I hope I'm respected, Noodz, even though our conversations away from here tend to be very short.