So I've had Insomnium recommended to me numerous times, and even have two of their albums which I've given casual listens to. Well today I had those two albums on loop while working, and holy shit! They are awesome! I've since bought the remaining albums and they are just as fantastic from what I've heard so far. So there!
I don't listen to much Viking Metal. I mean, I own and enjoy my one Amon Amarth album (Twilight of the Thundergods), but aside from what's been posted in this thread, and the occasional stream of Youtube links I'll see here or there, I've never familiarized myself with the genre. Anyway, I've discovered a Viking Metal band called Týr. I don't know if they've been talked about in this thread, but since Xenforo doesn't allow searches for words with only three characters, and I'm too lazy to do a google site: search, I'm just gonna talk about them like they haven't been mentioned yet. With that said, I have no idea if these guys are a household name in the Viking Metal world or what, but they're new to me. What's caught my ear is their exclusive use of clean vocals; they're a nice change of pace and I thought I'd share this since some people around here have wanted to get into some modern metal, but could never come to terms with the proliferation of growling and screaming so common today. Here's an example of their music, you can tell this is Viking Metal because they're rocking out on a viking ship: They might not be breaking much ground as far as the music goes, but for those who haven't been able to get into several of the bands shared in this thread because they don't like the vocals, these guys might just do the trick.
Thanks kerzain for the Blizzard at Sea link. Good stuff. Thanks multiple for mentioning Insomnium. Wow. Also I really love having MOG (insert your favorite service here) so I can just go and test drive these bands immediately. Insomnium is on now, they have 5 albums. :D
I <3 Týr. Viking metal is all sorts of awesomeness. I am very much considering getting myself a ticket for Paganfest, just to see Týr. A close relation of viking metal is folk metal. If you haven't heard them yet, check out Wintersun. They use a combination of growl, clean, and choirs: Wintersun is a side project from one of the members of one of the big viking metal bands, Ensiferum. Mostly growly: Heidevolk sing in some crazy moon language, mostly clean:
Ahh yea, I remember watching a couple Alestorm videos a few years ago. At the time I think people were calling it Pirate Metal, it seemed funny, but I wasn't in the frame of mind to pursue any of that kind of stuff at the time. I've seen Wintersun pop up time and time and time again on best-of and top-ten lists, but never being a big fan of Folk Metal I never spent much time with them either. For the last few years I've been delving into more technical/math/progressive/sludge/post metal (and grindcore/noisecore) more than anything else in the metal world.
Streaming music in Canada is pretty limited, thank goodness Rdio is available. At $10/month, it's a bit pricey. But being able to download and store songs and albums on my phone for when I'm in areas with zero cell reception is awesome.
A new Intronaut (progressive/experimental metal) track has finally been released. This is off their upcoming album called "Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)." The album is due next month, and the song is called Milk Leg (the actual music starts around 00:23): Unlike their older stuff, their last album (Valley of Smoke) saw them leave behind the atonal death metal vocals that had been a staple of theirs for years, in exchange for cleaner vocals and harmonization one could easily compare to the likes of Baroness. If this newest track is at all representative of the upcoming album as a whole, it sounds like they're making an even more concerted effort to kill the aggression with deeper layers of harmonies and smoother delivery, while still exploring their brand of progressive post-metal. For those who don't have time to listen to the Youtube track, this is the new album's artwork. It should do a pretty good job informing you of exactly what the new album will sound like, before you ever even get your hands on it:
a couple of the guys recently started and toured with another band. Call Me No One. Saw them open for Nonpoint and Eye Empire They're pretty good live as is their CD.
I really got into Eluveitie after seeing them on this thread, the Early Years recent release was not disappointing, and through them have recently got a few Arkona albums too, Arkona are a Russian folk metal outfit, very similar to Eluveitie but with a female vocalist but the sound is very Russian.
Arkona is fantastic. Goi Rode Goi is probably the album to get if you're looking for more and not sure where to start. It's got the most arrangement variety and it features the amazing Na Moey Zemlye which is an epic collab between Arkona and like, 4 or 5 other Euro/Russo/Nordic folk metal bands.
I mentioned Be'lakor a little earlier in this thread. Needless to say, I received their first two albums the other day after being thoroughly impressed with their more recent offering. A personal greeting on an order confirmation email (including well wishes for my part of the world) was a nice touch. But better of course is this here track. A 10 minute masterpiece (in my opinion) that blew me away the first time I heard it, and appreciated more listening to on the stereo system. Even seeing a youtube clip of the band playing live, they manage to nail it.
So Botswana apparently has a thriving metal scene, of all places. I've been doing some digging and found some gems. I'm going to have to get my hands on some of these albums.
I posted this in the music thread too, but they feel pretty prog-metal to me. Amazingly flowing instrumentals, so far the entire album is like this. Edit, wewt, MOG has Be'lakor. Man, between this thread and MOG I'll be in awesome music forever! :D
Marcin I was trying to think of what If These Trees Could Talk reminded me of. Don't worry, it isn't Tool. On a personal note, I hate this prevalence of comparing Band "X" to Tool.... But that aside, as I had my eyes closed and certainly relaxed listening to this song, it hit me that this is in the same vein as Mogwai (the band that is). A more heavier Mogwai which is bloody good in my opinion - if they had to be be pushed into a genre, it would I guess be post rock, which is where Mogwai firmly sit. One thing I like as I'm looking for the album is the track names. Got to love a theme. Thanks for making me aware of them, it is this sort of instrumental music that I like, especially when I'm trying to doze off before nightshift. Or to work to when alone at work.
Heard this and liked it a lot. It's slow n evolves throughout 13 minutes but I love it. Also, 13 minutes feels extra long when listening to hard n quick Descendants before hand. Also, if anyone wants a good metal show but doesn't have a radio station providing one, KEXP's (streamable, but duh) Seek and Destroy is pretty awesome. You can stream old shows, too. No need to listen to it live (though I do as often as possible).
If you want a heavier Mogwai-ish band, check out Caspian. Well, occasionally heavier. Really good band.
Although it's nice to hear new tracks as soon as they're available, I do often wish these things were released a little closer to their respective album's release dates. In this case, we have a brand new track from Kylesa, entitled Ultraviolet (off their upcoming album of the same name). As far as I know this thing just went up within the last day or so, but here's where things start to suck, this album isn't even due out for another three fucking months (May 24-25th)... So anyway, on to the music: And in other news, I just discovered this band Skarp the other day. They've only put out a couple full albums, with their latest coming out eight year ago, in 2005... But, I love what I've heard so far on Youtube, and ended picking up their 2005 album, Requiem:
NEW KYLESA FUCK YES (I shall refrain from listening to that track, as I still enjoy hearing the whole album straight through no spoilers style.)
Without spoiling it, based on your opinions in this thread about certain other releases from the last year or so, you're going to love it (I know I certainly do, probably one of my favorite Kylesa tracks thus far).
No matter how many times I listen to Static Tensions and Spiral Shadow, they both get better every time I listen to them. Such a great band.
It really is. There's a couple tracks that have bits in them I don't like... but I'm not sure I can think of another album with so many memorably awesome bits of music. Also, am I the only one who finds that almost every song is some kind of call-out to other bands, while still being distinctly soilwork? Entering Aeons specifically could be from a recent Blut Aus Nord release. I was going to link it but the internet hasn't filled up youtube with the tracks yet. For shame, internet, for shame.
A new Dillinger Escape Plan album is due out in a couple months, entitled One of Us is the Killer. Here's a track off that album, called Prancer: Although I dig the track, I'm hoping it's not representative of the whole album. Although it's undeniably demonstrative of what D.E.P. is capable of and what they're about, at the same time it doesn't do much to show the band moving forward in any real sense. In much the same way Tool's "Vicarious" (the opening track to the album 10,000 Days) initially came off to me as a sort of 5-minute re-hash/summary of the album Lateralus, this track also seems to feel too familiar from the get-go. As far as I'm concerned (and somewhat contrary to many of their fan's opinions) D.E.P.'s albums have been getting better and better with every release, ultimately peaking with their last one, Option Paralysis (an album which is easily among some of my favorite releases from any band in the last few years). My hope is that the band doesn't pay too much heed to fans who dismiss their later work and just want what amounts to newer version of Miss Machine and Calculating Infinity released every couple years. Although Dillinger Escape Plan has never been a band that could be accused of matching anyone else's sound (well, maybe except for the band Human Remains early on), in the case of Prancer, there are times when it seems they're dead-set to borrow from themselves. Either way, I'll have this thing in my hands on day one. I'm also sure I'll be much happier with the full album than this small slice, and I'm usually more about the deep cuts anyway.
Intronaut's next album is being streamed in its entirety here: Link. I've only just started listening to it myself, no opinions yet.
Dammit, Gaza broke up. A couple of their members will still be making music together, but not much else is known. Not a widely known band, but I really dig their sound. One of my favorite album openers comes from them:
What if I told you that Stephen O'Malley formed a band with Michio Kurihara and Atsuo? And what if I told you that they were called Ensemble Pearl and you can buy their self-titled debut album right now? Is that something you might be interested in?
