Finally on the path to popularity?!

Of course you can already see this in the homepage, but let's savor this while it's still like that. So far this week, Metal Academy has gained around 10 members, and half of them have each rated dozens to hundreds of releases throughout the week. Amazing, right!? This is a rapid increase in growth and might be a promising sign for the site to be more popular! Well I wouldn't get my hopes up so much in case this doesn't last long, but I'll just say thanks to all those new members for joining and supporting the site, and all the active members, especially Ben and Daniel, for making this site possible. Keep it up all!

Me, I'm intentionally posting on this forum more than I should because I do want this place to be more active.  Though I think I should check some metal pages on social media to try and get a better response.  And a couple potential RYMers could bring this place up casually on their forums.

The social media route is a fairly unforgiving one as you get very little bang for buck in my experience. The more angles we attack this from simultaneously the better though so it would be great if anyone wants to chip in by giving us some additional publicity on their own feeds. Obviously the more content we have going on in the forums the better but I think it's also important to have people using our wider functionality when newcomers are examining the site. For this reason I've been making a conscious effort to check out at least one of the Hall of Judgement entries I haven't contributed to each month, starting with the oldest ones so that we can try to bring them to an outcome. If anyone else would like to participate in that exercise it'd be greatly appreciated as we have so many Hall entries that only need one of two votes to close out right now. Ultimately though, the best way to get more members is through word of mouth so please tell everyone you know that might be interested about the Academy. If everyone does that then I think we'll do very well. There's definitely been a noticeable pickup in activity of late which is encouraging because these things just need to reach a certain tipping point before the snowballing effect starts to really take hold.

I've got a little more free time for that now that I'm done with my top 100.  I'll be checking out more bands in the judgment hall, assuming I can vote on those albums.

If you haven't already voted on it Rexorcist, Rainbow's "Rising" is only one or two votes away from an outcome.

Voted.  Easy no.  Metal wasn't quite as heavy back then, and even by today's standards, reaching Sabbath heaviness is considered hard.  I always treated that as early metal.

Excellent. Thanks for that. Fleshgod Apocalypse's "Agony” is another old nomination that’s very close to an outcome.

Voted to keep symphonic on that one.  There might only be one instrument handling the symphonic genre, but the tone and focus of the album is centered on that violin's symphonic behavior.

Rexorcist, if you read the notes on that Hall entry you'll find that it was never in question that "Agony" is a Symphonic Death Metal album. The Hall entry was really about whether a record like "Agony" should reasonably sit in our heavy/power/symphonic/neoclassical metal clan alongside the likes of Nightwish, Within Temptation & Epica (not to mention Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween & Blind Guardian) or not.

Rexorcist, if you read the notes on that Hall entry you'll find that it was never in question that "Agony" is a Symphonic Death Metal album. The Hall entry was really about whether a record like "Agony" should reasonably sit in our heavy/power/symphonic/neoclassical metal clan alongside the likes of Nightwish, Within Temptation & Epica (not to mention Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Helloween & Blind Guardian) or not.

The way I see it, that's essentially the same thing.  And I DID read the notes.  Plus, you seem to have forgotten above the notes that says, "This change would also remove the Symphonic Metal genre from this release."  I'm perfectly fine if you create a symph-death metal genre, and for some time I've questioned why the phrase isn't very common.  But I also feel that the album catered to me needs as a Guardian by changing its brutal tech death behavior from the debut and the EP to an attitude somewhat closer to what I expect from modern symphonic power bands that focus on heaviness.  It catered to my needs, so I voted not to remove the genre.

Having said that, I'm not against a symphonic death metal tag.  But I do believe that FGA has become something different from most death metal, and just different enough to consider.

Also, don;t take this the wrong way, but I;d prefer it if you didn't assume I didn't read something again.  Not everyone will read things the way you do, and there was never anything that stated I didn't read the post or that I got the idea that someone said it wasn't "symph death" as opposed to "symph."  Phrases like "misuse of the Symphonic Metal genre" makes that pretty clear.

Apologies Rexorcist. I didn't mean to offend. I just didn't see a correlation to the Hall entry in your post above so assumed there was a misunderstanding of some sort. I guess I also have an inherent bias towards this particular Hall entry as I can't for the life of me see how Fleshgod Apocalypse & Apocalyptica hold the same audience but if you're telling me that they do then that's my bad. You have every right to vote in whichever way you see fit & it's really none of my business. That's what the clan system is here for after all i.e. to stop whinging ol' death metal obsessives from having a say in what happens with melodic metal genres that they have no genuine interest in.

Thank you for the apology.

To be fair, the system is all about walking fine lines because of the overlap in genres becoming unpredictable.  For example, take Hell II's incredible usage of sludge, doom and drone with hints of death and black.  With its major genres, it's the perfect album for The Fallen.  And then we have a mix of power metal and thrash metal on Burnt Offerings, boasting mild symphonic, prog and doom and death influences.  It likely fits in both the Guardians and The Pit (no way Dante's Inferno is power instead of thrash), but it also takes atmospheric influence from key genres of the Horde and the Fallen.  When a band like Fleshgod comes around, that's when things get technical and the discussions begin.

Of course, I can't speak for Apocalyptica, but I was thikning along the lines of the high-energy music of Dawn of the Dragonstar by Twilight Force and the symphonic power sounds of Galneryus.  The heaviness of death metal mixed with the high symphonic focus brought the same feeling somewhat to life, thus through heaviness the similarities are found where they likely shouldn't be found.

This reminds me of a movie I saw which surprised me with how well it handled two completely different genres and combined them so seamlessly: gritty film noir and children's cartoons.  Roger Rabbit.  The key factor in combining the two was violence.  The scene explaining Bob Hoskin's disdain for cartoons in the bar said it all.