Shadowdoom9 (Andi)'s Forum Replies

Here's my submission for the May Guardians playlist:

Ryujin - "Saigo No Hoshi (feat. Matthew K. Heafy) (Single Edit)" (from Ryujin, 2024)

Djenty progressive metalcore from LA, California:

A few awesome melodic death metal bands whose music I've encountered in the past, but was never fully interested in them until recently. The idea of blending melodeath with more epic genres like symphonic, gothic, progressive, or power metal makes bands like these two stand out from the melodeath pack and practically constitute their own genre (not saying that we should invent any redundant subgenres), "eternal melodeath", if you will.

As I'm slowly rebuilding my power metal interest again thanks to one of my outside-world friends, going an entire life without listening to this band would be a sin for any fan of dark power metal:

Getting back into more of the alt-metal zone, here are a couple highlights from bands I've discovered, including the industrialized sound of these two bands:

And the thrashy alt-metal of Creed/Alter Bridge guitarist Mark Tremonti's solo project:

Ben, please add these Celldweller albums:

Offworld (non-metal album to bridge the gap)

My Disintegration (Remix Contest Compilation)

Satellites (Remixed)

Ben, please add the new While She Sleeps album Self Hell.

An Alestorm-esque heavy/power metal anthem worth singing along to:

Sorry to hear, Vinny. Condolences

Yeah, I guess you're right, Daniel. But it was worth a good experiment. I don't think my packed schedule both here and in the outside world would let me do just one album/clan per week anyway.

Sorry to hear about your grandmother, Rex. RIP

A true grand experience of every old and new thing DragonForce has done, with some of the most adventurous ideas the band has had to date:

I have no intention on revisiting the over-the-top pirate humor of Alestorm nor checking out their new Voyage of the Dead Marauder EP. However, I wasn't gonna miss out on listening to their cover of a song from the RuneScape MMORPG soundtrack. I can definitely find some fun nostalgia there! Now I'm hoping for Gloryhammer or DragonForce to later cover one of the more epic battle-oriented RuneScape tracks...

An adventurous part of a new solo release by Iron Maiden vocalist Bruce Dickinson:

A true symphonic trance metal anthem, so heavy and theatrical:

A perfect driving standout of trance-metalcore:

For the albums mentioned in the thread that seem to intrigue me enough to check out later, I might be up to giving the Novembre and The Amenta releases some spins. Cheers guys!

Thanks again, guys! I enjoy a lot of both the beautiful progressive gothic metal of Novembre and the brutal industrial death metal of The Amenta, and I'm up to checking out more from those bands.

A twisted addictive way to head out of this brutal industrial death metal offering:

Pulverizing industrial/death metal from NSW, Australia:

Ben, please add the new DragonForce album Warp Speed Warriors.

The vocals and guitars reach their progressive height as dynamic emotion flow through the atmospheric darkness:

A dark epic of perfect harmony and well-placed acoustics, all for some gothic fun:

A memorable song spitting out some fast sludge fire:

A perfect epic of stoner/sludge/thrash metal:

And here are the Moonspell and Grand Magus releases I've selected as part of the thread for this month, both of which earn a rating of 4-stars:

The first signs of the band returning to their harsher blackened roots of Wolfheart were hinted in The Antidote and expanded upon in Memorial, even adding some deathly aspects. The heaviness continues in Night Eternal while making some room for their atmospheric side. The heavier songs rule with blackened death-ish riffing and vocals, while the lighter songs go back to the mid-period gothic rock/metal. One of the songs has female vocals by Anneke van Giersbergen (ex-The Gathering). I loved her guest appearance more about 5 years before this review, but not so much now in my recent revisit. Maybe because the more serious heavy modern side of my metal taste has grown recently. But I still enjoy the brilliant female background choirs in the heavier tracks. Although I don't enjoy Night Eternal as perfectly as I had 5 years ago, it's still highly interesting, and a much better deal than their experimental albums like The Butterfly Effect. Moonspell fans wanting their earlier heaviness to return got their wish. With that and great lyrics, this shall give gothic metal listeners their money's worth....

Similarly with Moonspell, I was listening to a lot of Grand Magus until a couple years ago when I decided to have my hiatus from The Fallen (due to this band's first two albums that are stoner/doom metal). I'm glad to be able to revisit an album from those bands and bring back some good memories... However, as interesting as the lyrics are, in some albums, they seem to lean into a more atheist pagan theme. I'm not saying they're as antichristian as black metal bands, but they might cause some religious discomfort. At least the sound is pretty cool, moving away from their old doom metal roots while having a moderately mid-tempo pace in the majority songs. And that wicked cover art reminds me a lot of Assassin's Creed. The stronger tracks are where the band sounds the best, playing fast and heavy. Though I also enjoy the exceptional two-part epic "Son of the Last Breath". The Hunt is a pretty great album with many excellent tracks and only a couple week ones that could've been much more improved....

Once again, I'll skip out on the selected releases from The North (Nehëmah - Requiem Tenebrae) and The Pit (Viper - Theatre of Fate). But if anyone is up to checking them out and any of the other selected releases, feel free to do so, but only if you want to. Let's get them into the charts, fellow metalheads!

A fast heavy metal standout by Grand Magus:

Cinematic blackened gothic metal from Portugal:

I've just reviewed all the Bad Omens and Mercenary albums, and here's what I gotta say about the releases I've selected as part of the thread for this month:

The Death of Peace of Mind is where Bad Omens continue their alt-metal path with more electronic influences then before. Here are my thoughts:

The ambitious sound will surely win some fans in the rock/metal realms in The Death of Peace of Mind. They even got a surge of popularity from one of their songs being used a lot in TikTok, that song being "Just Pretend", a single greatly balanced heaviness and emotion. All the other songs are either metal-focused or electronic-focused, and there's no doubting the obvious nods to Bring Me the Horizon that sometimes work and sometimes doesn't. Either way, Noah Sebastian performs some of his best, most widely-ranged vocals yet. Bad Omens continues to bring their career to a more global light as they create music for the modern metal masses!

4.5/5

Mercenary's unique sound of melodeath with progressive/power metal tendencies has stirred up another perfect masterpiece in the gem that is The Hours That Remain. Here are my thoughts:

Mercenary continues to be the respectable ensemble they are here. The music shines with its production that allows easy clarity for the instruments. Everything's perfectly produced and your mind can focus on the music without any troubling thing. The vocals are quite unique here. Kral left the band right before the album was to be recorded, and while producer Jacob Hansen took over on bass, clean vocalist Mikkel Sandager decided to test out his growling/screaming abilities. His harsh vocals are so perfectly kick-A that I wish he could do them full-time, though I also enjoy his beautiful singing voice and I don't want that to get strained. Though in a couple songs, the harsh vocals are performed by guests Björn "Speed" Strid of Soilwork and Marcus Bischoff of Heaven Shall Burn. There are songs that are more focused on clean singing and adding a fair amount of keyboard melody, and other songs that are heavy highlights with harsh vocals. The stellar sound has slightly improved from 11 Dreams and is able to maintain the perfect glory of Everblack. They continue to level up their greatness that would decrease in later releases while staying strong. Any metalhead should get The Hours That Remain. A fantastic confident offering of epic melodeath!

5/5

As amazing as that song is, I'm both surprised and not about this song's presence in TikTok boosting the band's fame:

A beautiful anthem picking up where Bad Omens' debut left off:

Here's my top 10 of 1991:

1. Coroner - Mental Vortex

2. Dark Angel - Time Does Not Heal

3. Atheist - Unquestionable Presence

4. Pestilence - Testimony of the Ancients

5. OLD - Lo Flux Tube

6. Voivod - Angel Rat

7. Godflesh - Slavestate

8. Anacrusis - Manic Impressions

9. Sabbat - Mourning Has Broken

10. Mr. Bungle - Mr. Bungle

Update to my list:

1. Ryujin - Ryujin [melodic death/power metal]

2. Madder Mortem - Old Eyes, New Heart [progressive metal]

3. Amaranthe - The Catalyst [trance/symphonic/melodic metalcore]

4. Drown in Sulphur - Dark Secrets of the Soul [deathcore]

5. Dead by April - The Affliction [alternative metal]

And my wishlist:

DragonForce - Warp Speed Warriors (can't forget about the band that started it all for my metal interest)

While She Sleeps - Self Hell

Erra - Cure

Imminence - The Black (I enjoy the pre-release singles from this band so much and I want more of them)

Linkin Park - Papercuts (compilation of their greatest hits plus a couple demo tracks)

Northlane - Mirror's Edge

The Ghost Inside - Searching for Solace

High on Fire - Cometh the Storm (their Bat Salad EP is so fantastic for me that I want more of this band)

Pestilence - Levels of Perception

Gothminister - Pandemonium II: The Battle of the Underworlds

Knocked Loose - You Won't Go Before You're Supposed To

Like Moths to Flames - The Cycles of Trying to Cope

Pain - I Am

Trail of Tears - Winds of Disdain

Wintersun - Time II (how can I not look forward to one of the most anticipated albums in all of metal?)

Here are some good symphonic/blackened deathcore recommendations for you, Sonny:

Carnifex - Necromanteum

Dragoncorpse - The Drakketh Saga

Lorna Shore - Pain Remains

Make Them Suffer - Neverbloom

Mental Cruelty - Zwielicht

The final pre-release single for Warp Speed Warriors is a wild fast banger that's like "Power of the Saber Blade" but with more variety:

1. Gateway playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 11)

2. Infinite playlist - 4.5/5 (number of songs commented: 10)

3. Revolution playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commented: ALL 29)

4. Sphere playlist - 4/5 (number of songs commented: ALL 25)

For the clans I've made the monthly playlists for, I've listened to the entire playlists! I'm grateful to Saxy and Daniel for their playlist works. I really dig the tracks I've reviewed in the Gateway and Infinite playlists made by Saxy, and I'm glad the playlists I've made have paid off. I recommend them to any fan of the clans' respective genres and anyone who isn't into those genres but wants to get into a great start in enjoying them. Thanks, Daniel, for accepting these playlists, and good work all!

THE GATEWAY: Rollins Band - The End of Silence (1992) 4/5

THE INFINITE: Voivod - Dimension Hatröss (1988) 5/5

THE REVOLUTION: Earth Crisis - All Out War (1992) 3/5

THE SPHERE: Turmion Kätilöt - Omen X (2023) 5/5

My Infinite and Sphere nominations are glorious gems that I would recommend to fans of their respective genres. I also enjoy the Gateway feature release. The one for the Revolution, not so much. Keep up the good work on the feature releases, all! I look forward to more...

Some of the most fascinating work Mercenary has done that almost sounds like an unused track from The Hours That Remain sessions:

Without a doubt a glorious epic of pure metal power:

Mercenary's second album is where their true sound starts with epic standouts like this one:

A wonderful 8-minute epic with female vocals and keyboards almost foreshadowing what Mercenary would add from their second album onward:

Well this next album is gonna cause some divisive discussion...

The most essential part of the history of Rainbow involves two members. First off, there's the band's main founder, ex-Deep Purple guitarist Ritchie Blackmore. He and Deep Purple were touring with support from blues/hard rock band Elf. That band was known as an early one for the legendary Dio (RIP). Impressive by Dio's mighty magical voice, Blackmore invited him for a different project, one that would become a great success, resulting in Blackmore leaving Deep Purple and Dio disbanding Elf.

As you can hear in Rainbow's 1975 debut, their hard rock sound combines the blues of Elf with the early metal of Deep Purple. Yeah, I'm saying it, this album is metal! Though their metal side would be more pronounced in their second album. But with a large amount of blues/hard rock in the album as well, I say the rock/metal ratio is 50:50.

"Man on the Silver Mountain" is a classic opener, right from that memorable riff. It's the most metallic sound here while combining their heavy metal side with hard rock. And that's just the start of the variation that would occur in the rest of the album. What makes that track the fresh classic highlight is how guitar-driven it is, as Blackmore slides through his riffing and soloing. Dio's vocals help give that guitarwork more atmosphere. More of that top-notch guitar playing appears in "Self Portrait" which, I suppose you can consider a power ballad, but to me, it has more of a hard rock/proto-doom metal (doom rock?) song of early Black Sabbath. The bass can be heard greatly, and the lyrics have poetic appeal. "Black Sheep of the Family" has the nice prog-ish hard rock speed of the band whose song they were covering, Quatermass. Good, but not spectacular.

Then we have a more obscure yet underrated track in "Catch the Rainbow". This can work greatly live with the clean guitar and vocals of Ritchie and Dio, respectively. It's more effectively that way for a slow blues rock ballad. Would the band's later vocalists like Joe Lynn Turner and Ronnie Romero be able to master singing that song as greatly as Dio? Didn't think so... The more exotic hard rock/metal sound comes back in "Snake Charmer", with a serene guitar solo. "The Temple of the King" has cleaner mid-tempo blues rock that continues to have the torch carried by Dio's vocals and Blackmore's guitars.

"If You Don’t Like Rock ‘N Roll" is OK, but their attempt to push their usual hard rock back a couple decades into the rock 'n roll era just doesn't sound right for me, especially that annoying piano. They assumed right, I don't like early rock 'n roll. "Sixteenth Century Greensleeves" is a mid-tempo hard rock/heavy metal march. One more highlight is an upbeat instrumental cover of "Still I'm Sad" by The Yardbirds. They take that band's blues/hard rock sound and give it a more metallic edge.

Other than that "Rock 'N Roll" track detracted a half-star from what would've been a perfect 5-star rating for the album, the music for Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow is all in amazing performance and mood. Although it is a rock/metal album, the more metal fans might find the songs laid back. Despite that, the heavy energy is what keeps things rolling. I must admit, I wasn't expecting that kind of approach, so consider me surprised. I never usually enjoy 70s music, but the "Roots of Metal" project is going mostly smoothly for me so far. If you enjoy Dio and Deep Purple, you might get a great kick out of this as much as their second more solidifying album. Catch that rainbow!

Favorites: "Man on the Silver Mountain", "Self Portrait", "Catch the Rainbow", "Snake Charmer", "Still I'm Sad"

4.5/5

Metal enough in my opinion: yes

It's been 5 months since I last listened to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, so I decided to give it a little more listening today. Now back then I was in the zone of checking out albums from the 70s in this project, and many of the albums I was listening to at the time sounded metal enough for my ears, and my thoughts carried over to this Rainbow album that made me think similarly to what those other bands/albums have done. Then in this recent revisit after listening to and reviewing a lot of modern metal albums, I've realized that this Rainbow album sounds nothing like any release I would consider metal. I guess listening to an album at a different time can trick my mind, huh? So I now consider Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow more of a blues/hard rock record, and my rating has massively dropped down to 2.5/5. How sad... Metal enough in my opinion: no

I would personally also include Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow and Scorpions albums In Trance and Virgin Killer, because I also consider those releases equally heavy metal/hard rock, and they're worth discussion to see if anyone agrees with me and if they should end up in the site, but that's just my opinion. 

Andi, I revisited "Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow" in great detail over the last two days & have to ask where you're finding any genuine metal on that album because I can't identify any personally.

It's been 5 months since I last listened to Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow, so I decided to give it a little more listening today. Now back then I was in the zone of checking out albums from the 70s in my side of the Roots of Metal project, and many of those albums I was listening to at the time sounded metal enough for my ears, and my thoughts carried over to this Rainbow album that made me think similarly to what those other bands/albums have done. Then in this recent revisit after listening to and reviewing a lot of modern metal albums, I've realized that this Rainbow album sounds nothing like any release I would consider metal. So you're right, Daniel, there's barely any genuine metal. I guess listening to an album at a different time can trick my mind, huh? So yeah, let's discard Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow from the project and carry on with all you've planned.

Actions can sing louder than words in this wordless soft industrial rock/metal highlight:

The climatic title track of Mutoid Man's second album that has more of the speed/thrash metal of Megadeth, even having former Megadeth guitarist Marty Friedman pull off wild shredding:

Not many bluesy stoner metal songs stand out as a highlight for me, but this one does:

A 6-minute epic of bluesy stoner metal gone progressive:

An under two-minute track perfectly uniting progressive metal with hardcore/speed metal as the leads and rhythms strike each other for dominance:

Feel the majestic catchy chaos of trance-y industrial metal:

I've just done my review, here's its summary:

Turmion Katilot started off on a perfect note with Hoitovirhe, plummeted down in quality in Perstechnique, and in subsequent albums, started slowly climbing back up. The ascent continues with Omen X, their 10th album and second one released by Nuclear Blast. Many of the songs have trance-y industrial metal energy to get you excited with its catchy chaos from the electro synths and riff groove alongside background choirs. With lots of different riffs and keyboards for a great time, there's no doubt Omen X will get you hooked into dance-y industrial metal. Party on!

5/5

Recommended tracks: "Gabriel", "Pyhä kolminaisuus", "Verestä sokea", "Sormenjälki", "Käy tanssiin", "Kuolettavia vammoja"

For fans of: PAIN, Deathstars, Rammstein

Amazing trance-y industrial metal to love from this band: