PrincetteScarecrow's Forum Replies

Wow. Sabbath are AOR!! Let's move this one to the "unpopular metal opinions" thread.

I didn't say Sabbath as a whole are or sound like AOR, just that one song. C'mon, you can't tell me you don't hear it, that song is super light compared to their usual fare.

99% of symphonic bands are only using keyboards Andi. Besides, if you want to identify the first example of a metal band utilizing an orchestra then it goes way back to a time when there was only one metal band on the planet.

As a symphonic metal nerd, this whole discussion is very interesting and I wanna look at more of these examples of early symphonic metal, but I think maybe it's a stretch to call this a "symphonic metal" song considering how light the sound is on this track. It pretty much sounds like AOR (Boston, Journey, etc.) with Ozzy vocals, and rym seems to agree that this is more symphonic rock that symphonic metal. It's definitely worth noting, but I personally am going to refrain from calling it the "first symphonic metal song".

Also, symphonic metal isn't really defined by whether a live orchestra or synths are playing the orchestral parts. Nightwish used keys for their early albums and no one would ever doubt that Oceanborn, Wishmaster, or Century Child are symphonic metal albums. It's especially true when looking at symphonic black metal, where the standard for how "symphonic" an album needs to be to warrant that tag is much lower (I'm of the belief that if In The Nightside Eclipse was any other metal subgenre but black metal it would have never been considered symphonic metal). Also, the distinction between synths and live orchestrals is becoming more and more, at least as far as determining genres based on this difference goes, meaningless as synthesized strings/brass/etc. have been becoming more realistic-sounding.

I gotta listen to more avant-garde metal, there's some great stuff but I'm not always in the mood to listen.

Anyway here's my top 10:

1. Mutyumu - I l y a

2. A Forest of Stars - Grave Mounds and Grave Mistakes

3. Devin Townsend - Empath

4. Diablo Swing Orchestra - Pandora's Pinata

5. La Torture des ténèbres - Civilization Is the Tomb of Our Noble Gods

6. Zeal & Ardor - Stranger Fruit

7. Bubblegum Octopus - Perfect Life & Other Stuff

8. öOoOoOoOoOo - Samen

9. Grandmother is Dead - Trust Christ Today

10. Mamaleek - Come & See

Rate Your Music (which is where the metal genre/subgenre categories came from for Metal Academy) has recently switched melodic metalcore into a metalcore subgenre instead of one of the main metal genres, so now it's the same level as deathcore. I think it really would make sense if deathcore is a main metal genre since it mixes metalcore with death metal, maybe for both The Horde and The Revolution? Then again, I would end up quitting assembling the Revolution monthly playlist because I lost my tolerance for death metal last year (more info here: https://metal.academy/forum/10/thread/748). I once made a couple clan challenge proposals for Ben; one to make clan challenges for the remaining main genres, and the other to make clan challenges for all the subgenres, but the latter idea would take too much work, and he's currently taking a hiatus from creating new clan challenges. I've sent to him via private message some release ideas for the remaining genre clan challenges for in case he decides to continue making them (I can privately tell you my release ideas for the trance metal clan challenge if you would like). When I assemble the Revolution playlists, I make sure to include all of its genres and subgenres while considering an appropriate ratio between them based on release notability, and I kind of think of trance metal and trancecore as the same thing because of their similarity in sound and the very little amount of releases for both of them. Trance metal has much less! Either way, any Revolution genre and subgenre is welcome in the Revolution playlists, so please feel free to submit your Revolution track suggestion here (one per non-members): https://metal.academy/forum/14/thread/484

PS: Sorry to hear you have the virus. Feel better soon, Scarecrow.

But isn't deathcore already under the Revolution banner already? You make it sound like deathcore isn't already something you can put in the Revolution playlist, when it seems like you can from what I read. I am interested in seeing the clan challenge proposals, as I think it's a super cool and educational (for lack of a better word) idea. I hope Ben's hiatus isn't for too long, it would be a shame if the idea was abandoned. I also agree that trancecore and trance metal are incredibly similar in sound, if not entirely indistinguishable. 

Hi Scarecrow. Very valid questions. When we originally created the Metal Academy website we had to decide on a reasonable configuration & wouldn't profess to be experts in every metal subgenre so we simply went with the most well informed position we could at the time. In saying that though, we're always looking for ways to improve the site & have made dozens of changes over time. I agree with you that in hindsight Melodic Metalcore should be under Metalcore & it's likely be something that we'll look to change in the future. Just bare in mind that every change we make to the database structure can create a considerable logistical challenge as we've already got tens of thousands of releases in play under the current structure. There's also a financial cost for us to make most changes so we tend to do them in batches in order to get the most bang for buck with our developer.

As for why there's not a trance metal clan challenge, that's because there are very few genuine trance metal releases of any note which makes it pretty irrelevant as a guide to a potential new clan member's understanding of The Revolution. In fact, I'm now of the opinion that Trance Metal probably doesn't belong in The Revolution & may not even warrant its own subgenre. That might be something we look at over time too.

I understand that. If it's more about the logistics/cost behind it then yeah I don't see a reason to prioritize this change either.

I would be a little sad if trance metal was done away with because I like the genre. I know it's definitely smaller than a lot of the other genres here, but I feel like eliminating it entirely would leave some bands/albums without genres that truly describe their sound (Like, what would you call Blood Stain Child if not trance metal? Melodeath? That would feel slightly misleading). 

Guardians:

-While Heaven Wept - Vast Oceans Lachrymose (also my favorite album of all time)

-Nightwish - Wishmaster

- X Japan - Art of life

-Kamelot - The Black Halo

-Dio - Holy Diver

Infinite:

-Protest the Hero - Palimpsest

-Mutuymu - I l y a

-Seventh Wonder - Mercy Falls

-Pain of Salvation - In The Passing Light of Day

-Scardust - Strangers

The Nightwish, X Japan, Kamelot, Protest the Hero, Seventh Wonder, and Pain of Salvation albums are some of my favorite releases from their respective clans as well, so we might just get on really well and be able to share each other's favorite metal bands, possibly discovering different bands that one of us has listened to but not yet the other. While Heaven Wept, Mutuymu, Scardust, I haven't heard of before, but I might give them a try at some point. Of course, most people already know Dio's album and song. ("Holy Diver! You've been down too long in the midnight sea...")

I see you also like some of Devin Townsend's works including albums from his former band Strapping Young Lad, along with Bring Me the Horizon's latest alt-metal EP. Good stuff too! If you're looking for some more melodic bands for your metalcore interest, may I suggest Trivium? They're one of my favorite bands of all time and a great metal starter!

Anyway, that's all I gotta say for now. Enjoy your time here, Scarecrow!

Omg! Yeah no it sounds like our tastes really align. I will sing the praises of While Heaven Wept forever, and Vast Oceans is 100% worth checking out if you have even a passing interest in heavy, doom, power, or progressive metal (yeah, it kinda does all of that). Also, if you like Nightwish you'll definitely love Scardust. They do vaudevillian symphonic prog metal that's just an absolute blast. 

I'm listening to Shogun by Trivium now on your suggestion. I've been on a black metal binge for the past 3 days so this is a pretty refreshing changeup. So far so good! I actually recognize a few of these songs. I think Down From the Sky and Into the Mouth of Hell We March were both in one of my brother's football video games. Thanks for the rec 

Hello.  Nice to see some new blood around here.  Good to see you have already started a couple of new threads also.

I am a fan of Panopticon but have yet to get to Roads to the North, there's a couple of us here who enjoy Austin Lunn's work.  Also interested to see love for that Summoning record.  Stronghold was my intro to the band a few years back but I find it hasn't aged well but in terms of that combination of fanfare and medieval minimalism you can't deny it is interesting still.

I am not familiar with most of those Horde releases you list so I have some new listens to check out, thanks.  You have my favourite Metallica album in your Pit list though and that Anthrax album is a good choice also.

You seem to have a good handle on most genres of metal which is really good to see.  What turned you on to metal back in the day, had you experimented with other music genres?

I definitely recognize Summoning sounds a bit dated, but I think that's part of the charm for me; that dungeon synthy sound can be a nice break from the soundtrack-esque orchestrals found in my usual symphonic metal rotation. Plus, I really love their approach to black metal in general; the lack of standard conventions like tremolo picking give it a different vibe from the usual stuff.

As I said in my first post, I'm not super well-versed in The Pit. Even within those 5, only 2 of them are just straight up thrash and the other 3 are more proggy/avant-garde/symphonic compared to to the standard fare, and I think I have less than 15 total thrash/groove/speed metal albums rated on rym. The Pit and The Sphere are by far my two biggest blind spots.

I started off listening to classic rock/metal because of my dad, and I used to play games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band which helped me discover more metal artists. I listened to a little bit of everything you'd expect a late 00s/early 10s teenager to listen to, but metal was the first genre I heard that encouraged me to scratch past the surface of the genre. Eventually, I just spent every day after school on youtube looking up metal compilations (primarily for power/heavy metal and then eventually symphonic metal, as those were the ones that really stuck to me back then. I didn't branch out much past them until I was older. My only exceptions to this were While Heaven Wept, which had the advantage of having heavy/power influences in their later stuff to ease me into their doom metal early material, and Warning which I only brought out when I was incredibly sad. I also knew of Summoning but only listened to one of their songs) to find new music to listen to. The first bands I fell in absolute love with were Nightwish and While Heaven Wept, the former sparking my still-ongoing love for symphonic metal. Pretty much all of my Guardians material and some of my Infinite material comes from this time period. When I got older, after having a phase where I stopped listening to most metal and only listened to top 40 stuff shudders, I came back around to metal and over the past 2-3 years or so have been branching out even further than I did when I first got into metal. Now, I listen to a wide array of metal, and I'm way more open to extreme metal, but I still reserve my love for symphonic metal and channel that into discovering unique off-kilter combinations of orchestral music and metal (such as Mutuymu - I l y a).

Hi Scarecrow.

Anyone who loves Panopticon AND Watching from A Distance (the greatest album ever released in my book) is a friend of mine!

Hello friend! 

Welcome to Metal Academy Scarecrow! You seem to have a fairly wide ranging interest in metal, so I imagine choosing your three clans might have been a bit challenging. Speaking of challenges, if you want to add a fourth clan, you can do so by working your way through some of our clan challenges (you can find them in the Lists section).

Anyway, we hope you find the site valuable and enjoy our unique features and very friendly community. Plus it's great to have another Summoning fan here. We need as many as we can get to counter Daniel's vitriol towards what is one of my favourite bands. 

Yeah, it was lmao. I just chose the 3 that I felt I have the most experience in. The Guardians was the only immediately obvious one because of what I talked about in my response to Vinny,. I then chose Infinite and Fallen because out of all the other clans those were the ones where I had the most artists I could list off the top of my head as being important to me.

I just checked out the clan challenges page. Looks super interesting! Because I've been on a black metal binge the past few days, I kinda wanted to see about completing one for The North... The only issue for me is that, looking at all of The North lists, I don't think I'll be able to listen to any of the lists in their entirely. Too much sketch and I wouldn't feel comfortable writing reviews for some of those bands. Maybe I'll get Revolution or Gateway instead