Morpheus Kitami's Forum Replies

Hard/prog, easy.

What sub-genres are there in the Fallen beyond doom/death these days? I think the primary genres are pretty much good as they are now, but couldn't tell you about any clan's secondary genres off-hand.

Hard rock, bit of prog, bit of psych.

A very hard rock approach to prog.

It's overly long & the zombie apocalypse theme doesn't really suit Deceased's sound as they're simply not deathly or grimy enough to pull it off in my opinion.

I'm curious then, what do you think of Goblin's soundtrack to Dawn of the Dead? Because that's basically the zombie soundtrack and it's farther away from those than Deceased is.

I think the horn is distracting people on this one. Hard rock.

Helium Head, heavy psych.

Ain't Got Hung on You, dunno beyond not metal.

I think that outside of the title track it wasn't very metal. Bits of it got into metal, but no more than your average album from then got into methinks.

My regards to both of you, even in an area of America where such a commute is considered normal, that sounds rough. Hopefully traffic really isn't that bad, and they know how to use their blinkers.

I've always been disappointed whenever I heard Call Me come on the radio because of that. That and some song whose name escapes me which starts with a suspiciously similar intro to Holy Diver.

I don't know if it's intentional or not, probably given that Moroder would have heard it at some point. Obviously the Looney Tunes song is just a straight up parody, which is a different matter altogether.

I'm going to break from you two and go for heavy psych/hard rock.

That's kind of freaky, but it seems to me it might just be coincidence. It just seems to me that the two travel in different circles on different parts of the globe and the song in question doesn't seem to be off that popular an album. I could be wrong, it's hard to verify the popularity of certain old songs in the modern era.

Heavy psych gets my vote.

Ah, this is what I remembered. Since we tend to be describing this kind of psych-heavy metal as stoner, stoner it is.

I forget what the exact song is off-hand, but Paranoid (the song) bore a striking similarity to some other song from around that time.

There's metal there, but I'm not so sure there's enough metal there to earn it a hard rock/heavy metal rating, it's just between having it as a primary and having it as a secondary.

No, I haven't heard any of their live albums. I remember trying to see if they had any when Joe Satriani was in the band, but left disappointed.

I think I've heard Fate use the first riff at some point before note for note. I think the latter is probably a, "well, let's make a riff like the one from Am I Evil?", and later on after having forgotten they adjusted it, did a new version of the riff where it sounded closer to the original.

If chamber folk describes a modern band playing a harpsicord, so it is chamber folk.

I was more impressed with than album than most people.  Even though they're better at hard rock, Deep Purple proved that they can really bring out the fantasy vibes through rock long before symphonic prog or any fantasy genres of rock and metal ever existed.  It was a very "vibes" album from what I remember.  And yeah, the prog wasn't always the MOST creative as it had been done more well before, but I kinda believe that the first two real prog bands were Moody Blues and Deep Purple, and this was one of those albums that helped cement it before King Crimson came into the picture (and coined the term).

Wait, King Crimson came after Deep Purple? (checks) I could have sworn In the Court of the Crimson King was 1968. '68 seems weird, because on one hand that's basically when the genre started, but at the same time you have about a dozen of the early bands releasing their first album then. Even some of the major Brit prog bands got their debut in, like Soft Machine. Seems weird in retrospect, because it often seems like rock sub-genres spring up overnight whereas metal took a while.

Recently, I've been getting back into Ningen Isu, a Japanese band very much like Black Sabbath. Very, very much like Black Sabbath. Too much like Black Sabbath, obvious.

(it should be timestamped properly, if not it's about 2:07) The problem is, while I know that's obviously taken from some Black Sabbath song, I can't actually put my finger on which one. It strikes me that this is less "ripoff" and more "obvious nod", since Ningen Isu in general often sounds like a tribute to Ozzy-era Sabbath.

(2:32 on this one) I know it's taking inspiration from something, but what I can't figure it out. Probably because my mental library of '60s psych is sorely lacking.

Heavy psych. Kind of sounds of like an amped up version of School's Out.

I didn’t reject any argument for Lucifer’s Friend Morpheus. You said it wasn’t a metal release & I took your word for it as I haven’t heard it. I was also conscious that RYM has a largely negative vote tally for "Lucifer's Friend" which isn't the case for "Budgie" so was looking for some sort of justification. I’m perfectly happy to include it if you think it’s justified.

I was kind of throwing it over to everyone else's judgment as considerable debate amount it and it might be interesting to discuss.

Interesting that the youngers ones of us, even if we didn't all hear them straight off, seem to all have roughly the same bands in our beginning years. Even though I don't think Kamelot, Nightwish, Avantasia or Opeth were among the very first albums I listened to, they were certainly up there. Dark Passion Play was absolutely massive despite the hubdrub over Tarja getting kicked out of the band and I think despite the Wicked Trilogy being weaker than the first two, people were happy to hear Avantasia again at the time. Opeth was also big enough at the time for people to license their music into games and movies.

Nice to hear that's finally behind you, sounds like it was really tough.

Hard rock.

While we explore "Kingdom Come", I'd also like to seek nominations for the 1971 records we'll be investigating. Black Sabbath's "Master of Reality" is a given & I feel that we probably should do Budgie's self-titled debut as well given the general feeling around that record. These are the other potential candidates:

Sir Lord Baltimore - "Sir Lord Baltimore"

Flower Travellin' Band - "Satori"

Thin Lizzy - "Thin Lizzy"

Deep Purple - "Fireball"

Anyone see anything they think is definitely metal & feel strongly about there?

The argument you're making for Budgie is the same argument you rejected for Lucifer's Friend.

That said, I see merit to the other Sir Lord Baltimore album, I distinctly remember one of these albums sounding metal and if it isn't this one, it has to be that one. Otherwise I don't think any of those are metal, Thin Lizzy is soft IIRC, and reading up on Fireball it's definitely hard rock.

I'm not sure what to describe it beyond not primarily metal. It dances around so much in ways I don't really know of as a style. I hear bits I would describe as metal but few and far between. I guess heavy psych primary, hard rock, blues rock secondary.

Before I somewhat randomly decided to pick up a Black Sabbath compilation from the local library, I didn't really listen to much music outside of the stuff in video games and Joe Satriani. I liked it, so then I picked up more compilations by Dream Theater, Iron Maiden and Megadeth. The first actual album I picked up to my memory is Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage, which I enjoyed somewhat at the time, but even then I found it a bit one note. From there I found I got into power metal and started listening to Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 2 and Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth. I also somehow decided to listen to Testament - Dark Roots of the Earth, I can't actually remember if I listened to any thrash albums before it, but it made more of an impression at the time than Master of Puppets. The first album I actually bought as opposed to just borrowing from the local library was Grim Reaper - See You in Hell/Fear no Evil, which I purchased because it was on a list of top 50 metal releases and I couldn't get it from the local library. In retrospect, I probably should have tried to get Satan - Court in the Act off the same list, but that's retrospect, neither album was anything but good.

I guess then I would say...

1. Dragonforce - Inhuman Rampage (2006)

2. Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Pt. 2 (1988)

3. Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998)

4. Testament - Dark Roots of the Earth (2012)

5. Grim Reaper - See You in Hell (1984?)

After thinking about it over the last few days, I don't think tagging a release with a broad, all-encompassing up-stream genre like "Metal" really accomplishes anything though to be honest. Genre-tags are really about drawing an appropriate audience to a release so they need to provide a broad overview of what people can expect to hear. Therefore, I've always thought that I should choose a tag that encompasses as much of the release as possible. If you ask yourself the question "Who will be more likely to enjoy this release?", is it ANY fan of metal or is it stoner metal fans? I would have thought that stoner fans are likely to enjoy the vast majority of this material, even if some of it sits outside of the metal spectrum. This concept is only made more relevant by our clan configuration & I'd suggest that The Fallen members are more in tune with this sound than The Guardians members are so the tag should reside in the group of genres attached to The Fallen in my opinion.

I would make the point that Black Sabbath is the kind of band most metalheads enjoy regardless of what genre they are. You could probably say the same about Metallica too, at least the thrash metal years.

Anyway, Fairies gets a hard rock/heavy metal vote from me.

Hard rock.

Oh, Ningen Isu's Rashomon album came out 30 years ago today. Been a while since I last heard it, so there's the perfect excuse!

Not really a lot else, King Diamond - Puppet Master and Kayo Dot's debut, but just a nice round 20. Protector - Golem was 35 years ago. Kind of weird to celebrate 35 years ago, but I'm guessing in a year or two I'll be questioning how weird it is to celebrate the 45th anniversary of an album...

Sounds kind of psychedelic to my not very psychedelic ears, so I'm going to go with the probably specifically wrong, but broadly correct psychedelic rock with heavy metal as a secondary.

I uh...don't really know. Metal, certainly, but I'm going to go with a lazy but safe doom metal.

This one clearly needs no discussion because it's...soft rock. Clearly soft rock and not doom metal. ;p

EDIT: As I either missed Andy's post or he posted it just before I posted mine, there was some reason on my part to be sarcastic.

While working on my goth metal chart, I'm also gonna be working on my goth rock chart.  I've only heard about 45 albums for each genre, and practically no deathrock, so now's as good a time as any to get through some Christian Death albums.  Thing is, I find them overhyped.  Most of their songs sound the same, and I don't like how the singer limits himself to only one style of half-talk half-sing crooning.  The first two albums were pretty good, but Ashes is getting a bit boring in comparison.  Shame, I was looking forward to that "dark cabaret" influence RYM tagged it with.  Obviously, Tom Waits does it better.

Christian Death is a really weird band because arguably most of their career has basically just been living up to the fame of their first three albums, even just the first, for however long they've been going on, and barely anyone on those albums was still around even in the '90s IIRC. Considering how long they've been at it, you'd think more of their albums would have something interesting. The other long-lived goth band I can think of, Inkubus Sukkubus, even if they don't set the world on fire, at least make one song that's interesting per album.

If you're still listening to goth rock, might I suggest Human Drama and Autumn?

"Hard Lovin' Man" has a galloping triplet groove, which is close to metal ("The Trooper", "Raining Blood", etc.), but Heart's "Barracuda" uses it too; it isn't exclusive. 

I would suggest that "Barracuda" is an example of a rock band utilizing a metal tool. I don't think it means that palm-muted, bottom-string triplets should automatically be added to the rock kit bag just because a rock band is using it as a one-off creative tool.

I will note that I've seen people describe that track (and just that track from them) as metal before.

As to the next album, I kind of want to see Lucifer's Friend and I kind of don't. It's sort of weaseled itself into any conversation about early heavy metal and it feels like even if I don't think it's metal, it should still be discussed. Just the debut, since I don't think any of the later albums are much in the running AFAIK.

(I don't have any thoughts on Planet Caravan beyond not metal)

It's from their 2019 album, Thirteen.

What if Mercyful Fate were Brazillian and Christian? Its uncanny hearing Dark Night because of how exactly it nails that sound, right down to vocalist Roberto Castro's perfect imitation of King Diamond falsetto and clean vocals. It comes off as the good version of the band from some mirror universe or another.
While there are those obvious Mercyful Fate influences, it's not quite as strong as the rest of the music. Dark Night tries to maintain some of the dynamicism, they lack the prog influences. They try to make up for this with sheer aggression. It does work, but between the noticeably different songwriting and the cheap-sounding midi keyboard, it's an odd effect. As three members of the band are also in a few death and black metal bands, this explains the vast change.
There's this Doom-esque usage of lyrics, which seems unintentional, where the lyrics are repeated like some kind of strange pattern, less like conveying something to the listener and more surrealistic insanity. So called because the Japanese band Doom used this almost constantly in their songs. I'm not so sure that's intentional here as much as accidental. More like they took 9's overuse of choruses to it's logical extent, add in songs with lyrics that often sound similar to one from King Diamond, and they accidentally created some fever dream of music.
Despite their problems, I found myself enjoying the album. Most of it, anyway. Gotta say the last track, In the Dark Side so strange and questionable on so many levels it boggles belief. It starts with a bizarre intro reminding me of Scarborough Fair, before alternating between out of place blast beats and then a musical cover of Temple of Love by Sisters of Mercy. No part of which is done competently. It'd be a demo track if it weren't as high quality a production as everything else.
This is very much just an album for people who feel disappointed in the lack of new material from King Diamond or just want such an album that isn't childishly edgy. If you're satisfied with what exists or didn't care for their inspiration, you'll hardly find much worth listening to here. Unless you always felt sheer aggression was what was lacking.

3.5/5

Btw, did you know this was intended to be a filler track and was recorded in 20 minutes?

Isn't that one of the most famous bits of metal trivia? Like the various bits of black metal infamy and how And Justice for All has no bass as a joke?

Something that might not be as common. The cover art was picked back when the title was still supposed to be War Pigs, and that's supposed to be a war pig. The band felt the cover didn't fit the new title, with Ozzy going as far as to say it now looked like "a gay fencer", with Bill Ward replying, "a paranoid gay fencer."

No real differences of opinion on the last three songs. Stoner metal sounds like an interesting way to describe War Pigs, but it fits. I thought ahead of time I would have disagreed on Paranoid, since my memory was more hard rock than metal, but yeah, metal.

In Rock was always going to be controversial, since in the end even if some of us think it's metal, it's also one of those albums your dad thinks is metal. I bring that up not because I think anyone said no because of it, merely that it's the kind of aura that hangs around an album like this one. I'm curious if that kind of aura is still going to show up when we do Lucifer's Friend or, I guess Bow Wow?

Side note, Daniel, do you have a plan should Youtube do to embeds what it's doing to stuff on the main site?

How about October Noir - Burn?

I don't know how much influence it had on the sound overall, but Twilight Project's EP is very much an early example of power metal.

Yeah, there's no question that Living Wreck's hard rock.

I don't disagree on Child in Time, it wouldn't be out of place on a metal record, but it's not necessarily a metal song. Gets a bit metal in places, but mostly just prog rock.

Flight of the Rat sounds borderline to me. It's got a nice amount of aggression and the pre-chorus (or perhaps pre-verse) riff is metal, but the rest is distinctly rock. A mix.

Into the Fire sounds like a KISS song, but one of their metal ones. I didn't think this one would be so controversial. Rock/metal.

I'll go with the grain and say hard rock/heavy metal.

This exercise was interesting, because were this any other band, I'd think right now we'd say this is hard rock. This album, outside of the first song, really dances around genre. But, because it's Black Sabbath, we're trying to find ways to justify it back onto metal. (not accusing anyone of anything I'm not doing myself)

I actually remained completely impartial throughout the exercise & tagged each song as I would a release from an anonymous modern-day band. I have no skin in the game as such as there are several other Black Sabbath releases that I don't believe to qualify as metal (see "Technical Ecstasy", "Never Say Die!" & "Seventh Star"). I was just looking for a unanimous site position on the matter so that everyone was comfortable with the direction.

I would point out that believing the other three not being metal doesn't necessarily affect one's thoughts on this one. Those three are not very fondly looked and are not important, so to speak. This one is, and that 40% rule is not a luxury that would be afforded to many albums.

Anyway, Speed King. Metal. I don't think in this case the techniques it lacks disqualifies it. The energy and riffs are very much metal.

I agree that this would fall into a category of hard rock/metal. Not the biggest listener of stoner, so I won't comment on that either way.

This exercise was interesting, because were this any other band, I'd think right now we'd say this is hard rock. This album, outside of the first song, really dances around genre. But, because it's Black Sabbath, we're trying to find ways to justify it back onto metal. (not accusing anyone of anything I'm not doing myself) Between the songs agreed to be metal and the non-metal songs with metal bits, we have enough, but it is interesting how close things got.

I think this one's not really metal, pure blues rock with some hard rock bits. Akin to one of Zeppelin's long songs, nice, but not really metal.

Outside of the intro, it's more rockish than metal. The metal bits don't quite seem heavy.

Wouldn't the traditional doom metal tag cover the 1:40 of heavy metal & psychedelia at the end of "Black Sabbath" given that it's essentially a diluted form of doom?

Eh, I'm not quite sure, since that does sound quite different to what I think of as psych.

Also, Jesus, Evil Woman sounds completely out of place, no wonder they removed it from the US release. That song would be on the soft side on a KISS album. Maybe just barely edging into hard rock.