[macrocheesium]

Quote:

It's trumpet/trombone, but I figured you guys might find these guys interesting. Definitely one of the funner bands out there. A far cry from Ihsahn, though.
 

 
Nice--still my favorite DSO song! Their last two releases have been good, but I just can't get into them the same way as The Butcher's Ballroom. 
 
 
Quote:

 
Oh, and Barren Earth is the ****, man. The line up is members from Moonsorrow, Swallow the Sun, and Kreator. Moreover, the mixing was done by Dan Swano. That's a combination destined to slam, and it does. 

 
What did you think of the second album?

 

[129207]

Quote:

 The Q701 was brilliant with that song!  I must now make a point to listen to more vocal/acoustic stuff with them!

 
Glad you like it! You really have to try the following albums with the Q701: 
 
- Sieben "Ogham Inside The Night"
- Backworld "Anthems from the Pleasure Park"
- Current 93 "Black Ships Ate The Sky"
- Mi and L'Au "Mi and L'au"
 
Sieben:

 

[PleasantNoise]

Quote:

 
I really enjoyed it. It took me a while to warm up to his vocals, but I think it was a really well done album. Metal needs more sax.

Ever Forthright has Sax solos through out, TRAM has some sax. Trioscapes has a tenor sax instead of a guitar. But yes I agree. Metal needs more sax. A lot more sax.
 
Quote:

It's trumpet/trombone, but I figured you guys might find these guys interesting. Definitely one of the funner bands out there. A far cry from Ihsahn, though.
 

Damn that's cool. and very fun. Not a huge fan of the vocals, but they do fit the music well so it's fine.

 

[Origin89]

Quote:

 
What did you think of the second album?

 
 
I really liked it. My memory is failing me right now, but it was definitely a dynamic and engaging album. I think I remember liking the Curse of the Red River a little better (not by much), but they're both great albums. I'll probably go back and listen to them today when I have time.

 

[Trogdor]

Power metal interlude...



Guys the new Kamelot is a big improvement over Poetry. Dave or I will be reviewing it soon. But check out the official video.

 

[William007]

Please, give me something heavier

 

[macrocheesium]

Quote:

 
 
I really liked it. My memory is failing me right now, but it was definitely a dynamic and engaging album. I think I remember liking the Curse of the Red River a little better (not by much), but they're both great albums. I'll probably go back and listen to them today when I have time.

 
Yup, that's pretty much what I thought. We have pretty similar tastes. They have a talented keyboardist, but the synth just didn't work on the 2nd. I thought it was too cheerful to fit the music and there were a few out-of-place solos.

 

[Origin89]

Quote:

 
Yup, that's pretty much what I thought. We have pretty similar tastes. They have a talented keyboardist, but the synth just didn't work on the 2nd. I thought it was too cheerful to fit the music and there were a few out-of-place solos.

 
I concur. I'm not opposed to some "cheerful," or moments of hope, in metal as I don't need my nuts chopped off every second, but I can understand what you're saying.
 
 
Man, after that Diablo Swing video in here I've been digging into their other releases, and this band has crazy talent. I'm really enjoying Pandora's Pinata. I'm feeling constantly entertained, hah. 

 

[Trogdor]

Please, give me something heavier

Ask and you shall receive, will be reviewed on Metal-Fi soon...

 

[William007]

Goood! Mamn i'm getting into metal

 

[Origin89]

Absolutely. Stick around and see how deep the rabbit hole goes. A lot of knowledgeable chaps in here.

 

[Origin89]

Nice bucket of sludge from Earthship this month. From their Iron Chest album.
 

 

[Eisenhower]

Quote:

 
 
That is all good, but as a mode of communication I firmly believe it works. Say Djent and straightaway Meshuggah, Periphery, Monuments, Sithu Aye come to my mind. Its really convenient to get recommendations based on metal sub genres since its an approximation of a type of sound.
 
I don't really care if some journalist defined one sub genre and the band hates it because the way I see it. Djent has got recognition all its recognition that way.
 
 Without genre's I would not have been able to find bands like Nami, Fornost Arnor, October Tide, The Chant etc etc because there is so much music and so little time to listen 

 
If someone said "bands that sound like Meshuggah", you'd be given Periphery, Monuments, and Sithu Aye as well.
I, and many others, managed to discover Meshuggah before the sub-genre "djent" was termed. This was possible because recommendations can be made on the quality of the music and not on specific technical characteristics. I actually like allmusic.com's method of categorizing bands in terms of feeling (they use adjectives like aggressive, dreamy, etc..), whereas many sub-genres are based on arbitrary distinctions like "featuring heavily distorted, palm-muted guitar chords alongside virtuoso soloing, and characterized by progressive, rhythmic, and technical complexity, often including polyrhythms." (definition of djent on wikipedia). Those types of descriptions take away the magic of music.
 
Quote:

 
No one said that bands that are sub-genred are categorizing themselves. There's a distinction in a band being described by the community of listeners as a subgenre (described below), and a band who categorizes themselves (during the songwriting process). Bands that DO categorize themselves going into songwriting as playing x genre are indeed bottlenecking themselves.
 
As wrathzombie put it, it's useful as a communicative jargon. But in no way is it supposed to bind a band to a formula. When trying to quickly reccomend something in casual conversation, these categories are useful in describing a shallow approximation of what to expect. Beyond that, its up to the listener's subjective taste to hook onto nuances, which singular words can't capture, which is where people start to write reviews. It's precisely because bands we enjoy can't be neatly categorized that we use certain words to approximate them so we can hook other people onto them. (This is aside, of course, from just jamming headphones on their ears and pressing play)
 
Is genre x stupid? It's really up to the community to decide. Some genre's catch on, some don't, it's a sort of darwinism of whether or not a term is useful in its description. For instance, cascadian black metal, as negakinu pointed out, is stupid and is restricted to those bands themselves because they don't inherently help in this procedure. As for djent, it depends on whether or not you think "Meshuggah clone" is a descriptor of worth. (just makin fun.)
 
So what I'm saying is that they're useful in some respects, and after a certain degree, they aren't; they're useful as reference points, useless as definitions, which is also why it's useless to argue over them as well, as it misses the entire point.
 
It's anything but a black and white issue. Sorry if I seem a bit overbearing here, I love contentious linguistic phenomena.

 
Bands don't explicitly sub-genre themselves, but nevertheless, if there are 5 bands with distinctive sounds each with 20 bands that copy their sound, you will be able to come up with 5 sub-genres easily. Hence it is indicative of unoriginality.
 
As I mentioned above, I think sub-genres make for very arbitrary recommendations. I love Meshuggah, but it takes more than groovy low tuned, distorted, palm-muted chugging with highly syncopated drumming for me to like a band. There is more subtlety to music than technical descriptors. The best recommendations I've gotten are from people with similar tastes as me who share music that they like and not music that sounds the same.
 
I am only making a big deal out of this because I think modern metal music is bad because of its relative lack of originality. So many bands seemingly define their sounds not through experimentation but from formulas. Its as if they're thinking "Oh we are a death metal band. We have to have blast beats constantly. And growling vocals. And lets design a really hard to read logo because everyone does it".
 
Bands like Converge and Mastodon are revered partly because they are not easily grouped. Each album contains a greater amount of variation between songs than what is typically given between all these silly sub-genres (slam death metal v.s. brutal death metal).
 
anyways, just my 2 cents.

 

[macrocheesium]

I don't think we have metal bands with less originality now. You just have to look harder for it because metalcore type stuff has become so mainstream that the original stuff is buried under it.

 

[wrathzombie]

Quote:

 
If someone said "bands that sound like Meshuggah", you'd be given Periphery, Monuments, and Sithu Aye as well.
I, and many others, managed to discover Meshuggah before the sub-genre "djent" was termed. This was possible because recommendations can be made on the quality of the music and not on specific technical characteristics. I actually like allmusic.com's method of categorizing bands in terms of feeling (they use adjectives like aggressive, dreamy, etc..), whereas many sub-genres are based on arbitrary distinctions like "featuring heavily distorted, palm-muted guitar chords alongside virtuoso soloing, and characterized by progressive, rhythmic, and technical complexity, often including polyrhythms." (definition of djent on wikipedia). Those types of descriptions take away the magic of music.
 
 
Bands don't explicitly sub-genre themselves, but nevertheless, if there are 5 bands with distinctive sounds each with 20 bands that copy their sound, you will be able to come up with 5 sub-genres easily. Hence it is indicative of unoriginality.
 
As I mentioned above, I think sub-genres make for very arbitrary recommendations. I love Meshuggah, but it takes more than groovy low tuned, distorted, palm-muted chugging with highly syncopated drumming for me to like a band. There is more subtlety to music than technical descriptors. The best recommendations I've gotten are from people with similar tastes as me who share music that they like and not music that sounds the same.
 
I am only making a big deal out of this because I think modern metal music is bad because of its relative lack of originality. So many bands seemingly define their sounds not through experimentation but from formulas. Its as if they're thinking "Oh we are a death metal band. We have to have blast beats constantly. And growling vocals. And lets design a really hard to read logo because everyone does it".
 
Bands like Converge and Mastodon are revered partly because they are not easily grouped. Each album contains a greater amount of variation between songs than what is typically given between all these silly sub-genres (slam death metal v.s. brutal death metal).
 
anyways, just my 2 cents.

 
I agree and understand what you are trying to say.. Peace !!!