July 2022 "The Gateway" Playlist - Metal Academy Radio

(Thread posted with permission from Saxy)

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7aY7WjCGySb3Lb4x79Dk5T

Tracklisting:

01. Katatonia - "Soil's Song" (from The Great Cold Distance)

02. Avatar - "Bloody Angel" (from Hail the Apocalypse)

03. Spiritbox - "Rotoscope" (from Rotoscope)

04. New Years Day - "Crawling" (from Diary of a Creep)

05. Treyarch Sound - "115" (from Call of Duty: Black Ops - Zombies Soundtrack)

06. Sleep Token - "Hypnosis" (from This Place Will Become Your Tomb)

07. Bloodsimple - "Blood In Blood Out" (from A Cruel World)

08. Twelve Foot Ninja - "Portrait #1" (from New Dawn)

09. Time, the Valuator - "Black Water" (from Black Water)

10. System of a Down - "Lost in Hollywood" (from Mezmerize)

11. Disturbed - "Intoxication" (from Believe)

12. Alpha Wolf - "Akudama" (from A Quiet Place to Die)

13. Egypt Central - "White Rabbit" (from White Rabbit)

14. Embodyment - "Pendulum" (from The Narrow Scope of Things)

15. P.O.D. - "Lost in Forever" (from Murdered Love)

16. A Pale Horse Named Death - "As Black as My Heart" (from And Hell Will Follow Me)

17. Evanescence - "Everybody's Fool" (from Fallen)

18. Yakui the Maid - "Flock" (from Flock)

19. Cold - "Suffocate" (from Year of the Spider)

20. Nekrogoblikon - "This Is It" (from The Fundamental Slimes and Humours)

21. Blindside - "Superman" (from Blindside)

I dunno where that Vanilla Ice track came from but it wasn’t there before. I just removed it.

Saxy, let me just say, you have done such as incredible job assembling this month's Gateway and Infinite playlists! This tracklisting has encouraged me to go through the entire playlist and find excellent tracks from bands I already listen to along with different bands in which some of them I feel up to trying some more songs from them. Well done, please keep it up! So let's get my track thought journey started:

Katatonia - "Soil's Song" (from The Great Cold Distance)

4.5/5. Awesome eerie start to this playlist, with alternating guitar notes in the chorus. This was one of my favorite songs from Katatonia when I was still listening to them. I still love the powerful rhythms throwing back instrumentally to Brave Murder Day. The simple concept is about evaluation and its resulting crisis, though "Who's first?" makes me think of Abbott & Costello. It's annoying how underrated songs like this don't get as much attention as the more popular sh*t.

Avatar - "Bloody Angel" (from Hail the Apocalypse)

4/5. It's f***ing great hearing a slow gentle beat blend into hardcore-ish melodeath/alt-metal, comfortably ringing into my head. A couple songs from this band like this one and "Hail the Apocalypse" are what got my brother hooked, then got me hooked next until I left The Horde completely behind. Still this is something metalheads must hear. So crazy yet beautiful! Though it might remind some too much like Alice Cooper, both musically and aesthetically. A couple other genius albums from this band are their self-titled 3rd album and Black Waltz. To start headbanging, just wait until after the one-minute intro.

Spiritbox - "Rotoscope" (from Rotoscope)

4.5/5. Spiritbox is back with a great hysterical alt-metalcore tune!

New Years Day - "Crawling" (from Diary of a Creep)

4/5. RIP Chester Bennington. New Years Day made a beautiful tribute to him with this great synth-rock-ish cover. It's not highly horrible at all, but I still prefer the original Linkin Park song. Keep up those vocals, Ash! It would be interesting if we have just the vocal track for New Years Day's version to use for the instrumental of the original. Such a killer job Ash has done singing this! Not sure if the reception this has received is positive, but my feedback practically is. My brother is a fan of New Years Day and still likes them to this day. I also listened to them when I was still into Linkin Park before my "real" metal discovery. Still not as emotional as the original. I think the only weak part was still with the first chorus vocals without the intro before actually starting the music.

Treyarch Sound - "115" (from Call of Duty: Black Ops - Zombies Soundtrack)

4.5/5. Another song I still remember from long ago is the best part of the entire Call of Duty: Black Ops - Zombies soundtrack, and my first (melodic) metalcore encounter (though I submitted it to the Gateway playlist because, where else?). The first time I listened to this, the only "real" metal genres I knew were power/symphonic metal, so I probably said something cringe about this like "Epica without symphonic elements". Now here's my better real opinion about that track; blazing riffs and drumming, with vocal alternation between screams and cleans, make that song a memorable metalcore one.

Sleep Token - "Hypnosis" (from This Place Will Become Your Tomb)

4/5. Another underrated progressive alt-metal song that's worth a fortune!

Bloodsimple - "Blood In Blood Out" (from A Cruel World)

4.5/5. Bloodsimple is a band that deserves to continue making these kinds of metal rampages from the crime-filled streets of New York. This is a black hole that only the strongest (like myself) can survive. This album continued the alt-metal twist from Tim Williams' other band Vision of Disorder's alt-metal twist. Might remind some of Dope!

Twelve Foot Ninja - "Portrait #1" (from New Dawn)

5/5. First time finding this band and I can't get enough of this great gem. The star-shining bass is so mind-f***ing-blowing!

Time, the Valuator - "Black Water" (from Black Water)

4.5/5. The vocals are what you gotta love in this song!

System of a Down - "Lost in Hollywood" (from Mezmerize)

4/5. Sounds beautiful, having a bit of Beatles/Bauhaus influence. However, I'm still not into the nu-leaning alternative metal of other songs from this band. I got other kinds of alt-metal to listen to, and that band ain't it.

Disturbed - "Intoxication" (from Believe)

4.5/5. Of course, I wasn't strictly against that kind 10 years ago. Disturbed was an awesome band in my pre-"real"-metal times, including this f***ing hard-hitter. Of course, this might not reach church, while having such an extensive vocabulary in the lyrics.

Alpha Wolf - "Akudama" (from A Quiet Place to Die)

5/5. There are some killer moments like the breakdown teleporting you like a Magic the Gathering wizard into the asteroid explosion killing the dinosaurs. A great angry song that would never disappoint!

Egypt Central - "White Rabbit" (from White Rabbit)

4.5/5. Egypt Central! That's another band my brother likes and I used to. This is one of the best from this band, it's practically f***ing awesome! After this album, they split up for 7 years and are planning some new material. From my lyrical knowledge, this follows a similar theme to that Jefferson Airplane classic covered by Sanctuary ("We follow like Alice and just keep diving down the hole"). This band certainly knows how to express themselves via these mental metaphors. I can thank my brother for blasting this music for me to hear all those years ago. I was just hitting puberty the first time I listened to any of the 12 tracks in that album. This is as insane as the Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit combined! You can just imagine this strange black-and-while world while stuck in this colorful reality. Though if anyone has nothing nice to say about this, they should just ignore it and move on. I was entering my teenage-hood when first encountering Egypt Central and other bands, but I was never so moody or mean unlike most other teens. I would also never do drugs, which is what any song titled "White Rabbit" is about. Yeah, those stereotypes can get annoying. I've never had the thought of the world trying to get us another just a couple year before the present when the virus started, and it is quite hard to escape that reality...

Embodyment - "Pendulum" (from The Narrow Scope of Things)

5/5. This is a more aggressive highlight, with bass Derrick Wadsworth's dominating work and the instrumentation and vocals sounding close to emocore.

P.O.D. - "Lost in Forever" (from Murdered Love)

4.5/5. Unlike those other bands I've listened to years ago, I've only heard one or two songs from P.O.D. I'm glad to hear good lyrics in this one, unlike the sh*tty you might expect from the most popular alt-/nu metal bands. God bless!

A Pale Horse Named Death - "As Black as My Heart" (from And Hell Will Follow Me)

5/5. Now this is super great! I haven't gotten back in touch with gothic metal since leaving that genre nearly a year ago, but I might return with this track from the revival of Type O Negative by that band's two drummers. RIP TON leader Peter Steele

Evanescence - "Everybody's Fool" (from Fallen)

4.5/5. Gothic vocal harmonies appear in this song that's basically about how celebrities keep sexualizing themselves for the sake of success, something that has bothered Amy Lee, especially when a little sister of her was badly influenced. An interesting lyrical message in another killer highlight.

Yakui the Maid - "Flock" (from Flock)

4/5. This one's pretty great and can fit well for an anime, though more digital-sounding and instrumental than the other tracks.

Cold - "Suffocate" (from Year of the Spider)

3.5/5. Beautiful skill here! Doesn't work quite well for me, but still a good job.

Nekrogoblikon - "This Is It" (from The Fundamental Slimes and Humours)

4/5. Excellent lyrics here, like d*mn good this song is! I can once again thank my brother for recommending me this along with one more song from that album for next playlist. Stay tuned for that...

Blindside - "Superman" (from Blindside)

3.5/5. This final time-travel into 25 years ago might not really make me a fan of Blindside or classic nu metal, not even 10 years ago when I was developing my taste closer to that style. It sounds too much like 311 gone hard rock. Of course, it's not totally sucky, but there could've been a better end to this playlist in which the rest of it is awesome.