My go-to for casual listening is usually Ghost, Opeth, or Black Sabbath. Not a fan of death metal or thrash, I love a good vocalist and guitar solos you can hum along to.
I don't know what subgenre any of this falls into because I am horrifically casual, but I fell hard in love with the older stuff from Nightwish (Tarja era; I wasn't especially impressed with their latest album with Floor, and I never liked Annette much, musically, although I'm sure she's a fine person). A lot of my playlist is trying to recapture that sound. Tarja's solo stuff is great; I also really like Xandria.
Within Temptation, Delain, and Trillium are also great, if more on the "metal" end than the "operatic" end (especially with regard to Trillium; they're very solidly metal-with-female-vocals by comparison to the others).
I'm just now checking out Moonlight Haze, Crimson Sun, and Blackbriar, but I like what I've heard so far. I know I should be into Lacuna Coil, but I haven't gotten around to listening to them much yet.
Midnattsol and Epica are very hit-or-miss to me, and I tried super hard to like Ex Libris, but just couldn't get into them for some reason. They feel like the opera and the metal are separate songs layered on top of each other rather than being blended together.
Outside of that subgenre, I'm kind of all over the place. I like one or two Sabaton songs (because, honestly, if you've heard one or two Sabaton songs, you've pretty much heard all the Sabaton songs), Mirath (from Tunisia) is pretty good, The Hu is also hit-or-miss (but damn, when they hit, they hit hard). Tyr has some really good songs, too. On the more popular end, I'm down with Red Sun Rising, and as far as the classics go, Judas Priest will always be the Leather-clad Grandaddy of Metal.
With what I'm familiar with there it looks like you're pretty hard in on symphonic metal, and some of the later stuff goes more into different flavors of folk metal. Not necessary to know that to enjoy it at all, but might be useful if you're ever looking for more in the same vein. Good to see more diversification of tastes popping up in the thread though, for sure.
I came from the world of grunge and other alternative rock of the 90s, so my gateway was Korn. They got me into playing 7-string guitar (which I still do), but they lost me after their fourth album. I really get into lyrics and their deeper meaning, so I felt that where I once identified with Jon, I no longer did.
Having said that, I got into Tool, then Metallica. I still dig them, but they lost me at St Anger. Everything since has felt really forced, imo and as a creative I really objected to how they went about writing St Anger as well (yeah let's just stick all the most intense bits together and to hell with dynamics and natural flow). I think I went on a metal break for a while, then got into Devin Townsend, Meshuggah, Mastodon, and Gojira. Rammstein is a staple in the library. There's a whole bunch in my library I can't think the names of that aren't in my regular rotation, too.
From metal bands, I've been hearing a lot of Powerwolf, Nightwish, Sabaton, Battle Beast, Beast in Black, Brothers of Metal, Babymetal, Gloryhammer, DragonForce, Rammstein and Rhapsody. Basically, pending to the more melodic metal musics with a faster tempo.
I've kind of grown with my all-time favorite band, Opeth. Started with them and harsher metal. Otep, Nevermore, Dimmu Borgir. As I've gotten older I've definitely gotten more chill/progressive and so have they. Caligula's Horse, TesseracT, Protest the Hero, Soen. Recently I've been listening to a lot of djenty instrumental bands. Scoredatura, Polyphia, Their Dogs Were Astronauts, Anup Sastry.
Mostly power metal (Blind Guardian is my #1), Black Sabbath, The Sword, Metallica and Megadeth. It's unbelievable how timeliness Metallica's Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets is.
I haven't delved into Sonata Arctica yet. Care to recommend an album? I think I mostly lean towards thrashy-sounding power metal but it's time to expand.
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It all started thirty years ago. Thrash was the beginning. Some time later, I discovered Gothic and Symphonic metal. And of late, I've fallen head over heels for Doom.
Some favs include (early) Metallica, Windhand, Bell Witch, Sunn O))), Type O Negative, etc.
Nods to Elder, Monolord, Shape of Despair, Nadja, some Ahab, Electric Wizard, Uncle Acid.
I'm open to most genres/sub-genres, but I tend to lean more toward various 'core' and prog metal. Huge Between the Buried and Me fan. Always looking for new stuff to listen to.
Persefone is maybe most in line with what you're describing that I get into, but I dig certain Periphery and Monuments (and some BtBaM as well) albums too. Am I close?
I enjoy most of Periphery and I know I've heard a few from Monuments, so I'll have to check Persefone out. Native Construct is another one that's in the realm of prog I love. It's a shame they just did the one album.
Ah, man, it was a while ago that my brother showed me that Native Construct album (this type of stuff is way more his vibe and where I hear a lot of it). I remember it being good.
I’ve been really into wind rose the last few weeks, whenever I need to do crap around the house I throw on Army of Stone or fellows of the hammer and get stuff done.
Back in high school (late 90s) while learning to play guitar I was massively into Metallica and Pantera. The Black Album was one of the first two CDs I bought with my own money (the other was Offspring - Smash). As I got older I got into a lot of other genres and I don't really consider myself a Metal fan anymore. But having said that, Ride The Lightning, Master of Puppets, and ...And Justice For All will always be special as will Cowboys From Hell and Far Beyond Driven. I tend to like the virtuoso lead guitars and riffs that swing. Pantera is what ZZ Top would be if ZZ Top were a metal band. I dig Clutch, Corrosion of Conformity, Black Sabbath, Zakk Wylde, Megadeth, Down, Damageplan... Is Rage Against The Machine metal?
Nice. It took me a wrap my mind around Clutch, but an old drummer of mine just kept on playing them around me until it clicked. I dig the earlier stuff a lot up through Blast Tyrant, then kind of stopped paying attention. I heard their most recent album though and I enjoyed it.
As far as RATM, I see them called out as nu-metal and rock kind of interchangeably depending on who you're talking to. Genre debates can be tiring and I often don't think a concrete answer is necessary or even important sometimes. They're heavy and if you like it... good enough.
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