New visitor to the website
Greetings everyone. I am saxystephens and I heard about this website through an PM on RateYourMusic. I have always been looking for a new place to listen to new metal since most mainstream outlets shy away from the underground.
A little background. I grew up in a household that listened to a lot of soft rock and adult contemporary music. So I have always had a keen ear for melody in the music I listen to. When I grew up into my teens, the first album I ever bought was Green Day's American Idiot . I was blown away by the crunchiness in the guitars. Through them, I discovered much of the alternative rock/grunge music that is considered canon.
My first love was Alice In Chains Dirt. It was unlike anything I had ever heard and I loved every second of it. After being introduced to bands like Faith No More, Helmet and others, specifically in nu-metal, I got a recommendation to check out Tool. They quickly became my go to artist, and Lateralus is a top ten album of all time for me.
My love for symphonic and power metal is mostly through my education. I have completed my undergraduate for music after six long years. During that time, I learned a lot about classical and jazz music. I really enjoy artists who take risks and step outside the box.
Those are just my personal favourite genres. I also enjoy the more melodic sides of "extreme" genres like black metal, death metal, metalcore. And I'm always down for a good thrash metal band from time to time also.
I hope that this community will help me discover some awesome metal that I never knew existed. And, similarly, I hope that I can do the same for you guys as well!
Keep those horns held high!
Welcome to Metal Academy saxystephens! I'm guessing from the name that the saxophone is one of the instruments you play? It's an instrument that is rarely used in metal, although Pan.Thy.Monium proved that it can be done in their classic Khaooohs & Kon-Fus-Ion. Actually that's one of the things that I love about metal. As much as the general population believes that "all metal sounds the same", it's in fact a widely varying genre that contains a heck of a lot of talent, daring and creativity too. Anyway, we built this site so that everyone can have a voice, no matter their background and tastes, and we hope you'll stick around and share yours.
Cheers,
Ben.
Welcome to the site saxy. I'm so glad you decided to come across & it's great to get an insight into where your metal roots began. Also, it's so cool that we've had a few new members joining The Gateway over the last few days. The site has been fairly extreme metal dominant up till now & we've always wanted it to be more universal & all-encompassing so keep up the good work as far as alternative metal content. It's all great stuff.
