morriscroy

Listening to Amaranthe's recent album "The Catalyst", released a few weeks ago by Nuclear Blast.

I never heard of them previously. This album sound like a pop band writing songs in a "Korn" or a "System of a Down" style, with three lead vocalists. (One vocalist is a lower pitched growler). Going through their previous albums on youtube, it sounds like the same style of writing.

(I didn't really listen to then-current metal bands in the mid-late 1990s or early 2000s. So I'm not really familiar with the styles which came about during these time periods around 25 years ago, other than what appeared on music channels like vh1, mtv, etc .... )

Doing some more googling, it appears Amaranthe was one of several bands who were kicked off and deleted from the metal-archives web site for not being "metal" enough (allegedly).

The Cow

^^ They've been around a while, they are hit and miss, but I like them. Their former clean male singer has a band called Cyhra that I kinda like (better live than record). Their current clean male singer is also in a band called Dyanzty that is a lot better than the band name , pretty solid. Elize Ryd the female singer pops up in collaborations with a lot of other bands (kind of like Alissa and Lzzy Hale do). I saw Kamelot with both Alissa and Elize singing with them a few years ago, that was pretty cool

I like the Amaranthe cover of Sabaton's "82nd all the way".

cultshock

I love the Metal Archives' "Is this metal or not?" gatekeeping.

Trout

They don’t even have Last Days of Humanity listed, but other bands like them are there.

morriscroy

Another similar case I encountered is a swedish metal band that is still on metal archives web site, but who sounds even "lighter" than Amaranthe. I first came across Metalite, before encountering Amaranthe. They sound sorta like an EDM trance artist writing speed metal tunes with a pop singer.

Back in the 1990s, I use to attend techno raves where "trance" music was played frequently. I haven't really come across many bands that sound like trance music played in a metal style.

morriscroy

Thanks for bringing up Dynazty.

I looked up Dynazty on youtube. (I haven't heard them before).

The singer sounds a lot more versatile than his performances on recent Amaranthe songs, with more traditional power metal type writing. Not as much keyboards compared to Amaranthe.

morriscroy

Did a recent deep dive into the back catalog of Visions of Atlantis. This is one wildly inconsistent band, where the primary songwriter changes frequently. The only consistent member is the drummer Thomas Caser, whose day job is working at Napalm Records where he is currently the CEO.

On the first two albums "Eternal Endless Infinity" (2002) and "Cast Away" (2004), it sounds like a "me too Nightwish". Not entirely clear who was the primary songwriter. On the second album, it appears the songwriting was mostly done by the keyboardist, guitarist, and the producer.

The third album "Trinity" (2007) sounds more like power metal and less "symphonic", where a different guitarist (Koch) appears to have been doing most of the songwriting (according to an old interview with the then-current singer Ferlaak).

The fourth "Delta" (2011) and fifth "Ethera" (2013) sounds more like pop music, with the keyboardist (Harb) doing most of the writing.


The recent incarnation with singer Clementine Delauney, were the sixth "Deep and The Dark" (2018) and seventh Wanderers (2019) where the primary songwriter appears to be the producer Pitters.

I thought the eighth album "Pirates" (2022) had much better songwriting than their previous albums, where a lot of it appears to have been written by the second lead singer Guaitoli and the producer (Heldt). Guaitoli happens to also be a lead singer and songwriter in Temperance.

Josh-da-man

Yes, Metal Archives, by all means, lets run the hot chicks away from the scene.

Speaking as an oldhead, we would have killed to have ladies like this in the scene back in the 1980s and 1990s.

morriscroy

Back in the day circa late 1980s / early 1990s before grunge became popular, the various punk rock concerts had plenty of women showing up.

Whether such women were "hot", was dependent on whether one had an interest in women who were: heavily tattooed, excessive piercings, unconventional wild hairstyles, etc ...

beavis69

I see more and more women at metal shows recently, so the scene seems to be more accepting (or just less douchbaggy about it).

One interesting experience I had was when I went to Tokyo and happened to catch a Decapitated show. Easily 60% of the people in the crowd were women and other than one other guy and me the pit was nothing but women. Was a really fun show. My wife had actually called the venue for me, as my Japanese is horrible, to find it if there were anymore tickets. She was given all the info and told me tickets would be available at the door. When I arrived (finally, couldn't find a sign and didn't realize it was in the basement of the building) the tickets were $100 USD. I thought that was crazy high for a 3 band bill but it was Japan and traveling was probably expensive. Also wanted to see a show in Japan. Show was great but since I spent so much on ticket I didn't buy merch or beer. Get back to her moms place and the next morning they are asking me how the show was. Told them how expensive it was and said that I ended up not drinking because of that. My wife then goes, oh crap I forgot to tell you that the ticket came with unlimited drinks. Thanks babe.

cultshock

Ouch! I've never been to a metal show in Japan yet, but really want to. And yes, I've noticed more women at shows as well, and it's a good thing.

morriscroy

I think I found the perfect background music for me, to play at home in a loop. I decided to order Metalite's past three cds, which came in the mail recently.

- Biomechanicals (2019)
- A Virtual World (2021)
- Expedition One (2024)

(Still waiting for the debut 2017 cd "Heroes In Time" to arrive in the mail).

Trout

Finally got the new Witch Vomit. Pretty good DM release, but nothing that treads new ground (I even think the last album sounded heavier, but still good nonetheless).

morriscroy

Heh.

A cover of a long forgotten WASP song Restless Gypsy (originally from Inside The Electric Circus).




This band (Among These Ashes) original songs, sorta sounds like Morbid Angel writing Pantera style groove metal tunes without the fast drumming.

morriscroy

I recently did a deep dive on the Amaranthe and Dynazty back catalogs.

For whatever reasons, I found most of Amaranthe's older catalog titles to be somewhat unmemorable in spite being catchy sounding. The only exception was the 2016 Maximalism album, which I recently puchased and been playing over and over again this past weekend.

In the case of Dynazty, their first three albums sounds like a Dokken clone with a heavy production. Not really memorable. The next two albums Renatus and Titanic Mass sounds more like paint-by-numbers power metal, albeit more catchy sounding.

I recently puchased their 2022 "Final Advent" cd, which turns out to not be the youtube videos I first watched. (I got it mixed up with their 2018 Firesign album, and ended up ordering "Final Advent" as a blind buy). Though with that being said, Final Advent sounds a lot better than the first batch of Dynazty videos I watched. It didn't sound like a Dokken-clone and was not just paint-by-numbers power metal.

After I notice this mixup, I figured out the first Dynazy videos I watched were mostly from the Firesign album. (I'm still waiting for this Firesign cd to arrive in the mail).

morriscroy

Listening to Dragony's 2021 release "Viribus Unitis", which sounds like power metal with keyboard parts that sound like a 19th century waltz.

The album stars off with a rendition of Johann Strauss "An der schönen blauen Donau", which sounds lake generic waltz music from central europe in the mid 1800s. IIRC, waltz was the equivalent of popular "dance music" in the German confederation and later Germany + Austria-Hungary empire.

This album sounds more original than their previous three albums, which the latter sounded like generic paint-by-the-numbers power metal. The theme of the lyrics appears to be about an amusing alternate universe where Austrian empress Sissi is leading an army of zombies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empres...#Assassination

morriscroy

Heh. I never thought I would have ever see something like this.

Live camcorder footage from a 1988 Repulsion concert where they play a cover of "Knocking on Heaven's Door" and leading into "The Stench of Burning Death".



Here's what the Stench of Burning Death was suppose to sound like on the first album Horrified.




Back in the day, Repulsion's "Horrified" was in of the last batch of metal records I purchased at normal price, shortly before I stopped paying attention to metal music. At the time I never heard of them and didn't recognize the record label (Necrosis), but it was distributed by Earache Records which I did recognize as the label releasing all that fast grindcore stuff like Carcass, Napalm Death, etc ....

So Repulsion was pretty much a silly impulse "blind buy" which turned out to be outstanding at the time. Really crappy raw production, that sounded like it was hardly mixed.

Trout

The godfathers of Grindcore.

stvn1974

I was up til the wee hours of the morning streaming the new High On Fire, Pearl Jam and Taylor Swift albums. At least the High On Fire is excellent. The local shop had a delay in getting the CD in so hopefully by Wednesday.

morriscroy

Slightly earlier, I found some napalm death and carcass "peel sessions" records at a then-local used record store. At the time, I didn't know what they sounded like. I figured it was low risk at around 6 or 7 bucks each for these second handed "peel sessions" vinyl records imports from england.

The napalm death peel sessions sounded really noisy chaotic, which I largely dismissed at the time. The carcass peel sessions sounded more interesting in spite of being really noisy sounding. I didn't look for further albums at the time. Though eventually I found a cd copy of Symphonies of Sickness sometime in the mid 1990s at a used record store, which I found much more listenable than the peel sessions.

cultshock

Yeah, I always considered Napalm Death to be the instigators of grindcore (but Repulsion was very early grindcore as well). And damn, I remember stumbling upon Carcass's debut Reek of Putrification in the local record store/headshop when it first came out. Holy hell, that album cover was disturbing, to the point where I did not even want to even listen to the band (I finally did when they started going in a more melodeath direction with Heartwork).

morriscroy

I didn't know what to make of the carcass record covers either. On the surface at the time, it didn't look like a typical "metal" record.

In the case of early napalm death records, the song titles sounded like political type stuff that punk rock bands would have been writing about (such as Dead Kennedys, etc ....).

For these such reasons, I wasn't willing to pay higher prices on "blind buys" of Earache released records imported from England.


In contrast, I thought Repulsion's Horrified record cover looked more like a typical "metal" record. The main reason I was willing to do a "blind buy" on it at the time.

wishbone

A college roommate blind bought Napalm Death's Scum/From Enslavement to Obliteration on CD. It was recommended by someone in our dorm that liked hardcore. I remember the opening tracks "Multinational Corporations/Instinct of Survival", "Sacrificed", and the magnum opus that is "You Suffer".

Trout

The whole Goregrind subgengre became less about the music and more about the album covers.

As for Napalm Death (and grindcore in general), lyrically they are 100% influenced by the hardcore scene.

cultshock

Yep, hardcore put the "core" in grindcore for sure. And stuff like Carcass lead to sub-subgenres like goregrind, deathgrind, etc.