I tend to stay with death, black, industrial types. Dragged into Sunlight, Carcass, Bongripper, Watain, Mercyful Fate, Sun O))), Birthday Massacre, Electric Wizard, Monolord, Eyehategod to name a few.
Took a friend to see Dragged into sunlight, he wasn't ready for that. Tripped him out. Then a year or so later took him to see Sun O))) and I don't think he trusts me with shows where he doesn't know the band now haha.
I’ve had a fun time over the last few months getting into metal music and its subgenres. I feel pretty basic in that my favorites remain Black Sabbath, Metallica and Iron Maiden. In my exploration I’ve learned that I tend to gravitate towards New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal / British Heavy Metal stuff. In fact, I found this Spotify playlist called Dad Metal that is absolutely up my alley and I have been shuffling through it a ton.
Unfortunately, I still can’t handle much screaming or harsh vocals beyond what’s in some Mastodon, Opeth, and Gojira records. Even some Pantera gets to be too much for me. I know that I don’t have to like everything and everyone’s tastes are different, but I feel like by avoiding all harsh vocals and screaming, I will miss out on a huge subsection of stuff. So I’m looking to get some suggestions on music that might help ease me into it. Maybe some albums that don’t have harsh vocals on every single track? Or even vocals that are harsh but you’re still able to parse out what the lyrics are?
Additionally, I’m interested in discovering some more recent bands and music that will help me add to my already growing list of Metal that I like. Some of my favorite records that were released this year are:
And, obligatorily, Metallica’s new record has been getting a ton of playtime from me: 72 Seasons
So, I’m looking for some new music recommendations along a similar vein to what I already know I enjoy. I’m also hoping to get some introductory avenues into harsher stuff, to try and get into that
Now some good options for easing into harsh vocals: Halls of Valhalla - Judas Priest
First thing that came to mind for me when thinking of "Dad metal with growls". Doesn't have much though.
The Smoke - Amorphis
^So hard to pick a song for this band. From Eclipse onward is one of the strongest runs any metal band has had album wise in my opinion. A good mixture between harsh and clean vocals.
Shoot for the Sun - Paladin
Varies from "thrashy" cleans like Metallica to growls in some songs, also one of my personal favorites.
Folk Metal is probably my favorite genre. I like it proggy, blackened, or deadened (does one use that?), but also on the quieter side as I like folk rock (and the German medieval metal/rock stuff) as well ;)
Grindcore once in a while, blackened death or plain death with some melody, electro/industrial/noise crossovers are other subgenres.
Sometimes power metal, but that’s rather limited to a few bands.
Gotta be fast, heavy, breakdowns, Brees and of course....BLEGHS
Deathcore fan here mostly.
Lorna Shore, Infant Annihilator, Job for a Cowboy, Shadow of Intent, Signs of the Swarm, Archspire, To the Grave and (honourable non deathcore mention) The Black Dahlia Murder.
Varies quite a bit, but currently listening to lots of Amon Amarth, Feuerschwanz, Rammstein, Zeal & Ardor, Iron Maiden, and Unleash the Archers.
Though this thread just reminded me that Arkona has a new album coming out soon, so I guess I'll be throwing some more of them on to get ready for that lol
Been listening a lot during work, which lends itself to a bit less aggression. Voivod and Mastodon are my go-tos recently, and on walks I’ve been liking Hoth.
I'm into most things, but my current constant rotations are Periphery, Haken, BTBAM and I've recently gotten back into Dream Theater, Meshuggah and Symphony X (I don't know how I'd not heard Michael Romeo's recent solo albums, they're so damn good) after a pretty long hiatus from them trying to discover new stuff.
Lots of black, death, blackened death, and every subgenre around that area. I'm a sucker for touches of prog, tech, and melodic stuff mixed in with all that too.
Current favorite has to be Slugdge, Esoteric Malacology rates for my personal album of the decade.
Archspire's Bleed the Future has been on repeat a lot lately, along with Worm - Bluenothing, Wolves in the Throne Room, Grima, Afsky, Agalloch, Aquilus, Thy Catafalque, Hooded Menace, 1914, darkthrone, etc.
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.
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