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Post by tao on Feb 16, 2019 19:21:59 GMT -5
v9733xa, not surprised about your take on the vocals on Swallow the Sun. Originally, I hated those vocals too, which is why I avoided the band until this release. But my tastes have changed a lot and I accept things I didn’t before. Anyway, impressed you even did a second listen given your initial feelings. That’s awesome. In Pieces...somehow you have now posted two bands within this time area with Skycamefalling the other one if I’m not mistaken, both of which I have never heard of. And it is weird because back then I believed I knew everything that went on in those rings of post hardcore and metalcore. Clearly I was wrong. I had A Static Lullaby’s discography, and while it was a nice sound, it didn’t satisfy me as deeply as a band like In Pieces would have, had I heard this back then. I like the epic arrangement to this band’s song structures. I like that they don’t just bounce back and forth between part A and part B. They through in a part C, D, and even a part E. Cool stuff. I don’t care for the vocals anymore, but I still dig it. I was inspired to respond with the song that got me into harder music, Thrice’s “To Awake and Avenge the Dead,” but then I can’t find the studio recording version, so now I post one of my long-time obsessions in place of it. Thursday. There are really only two bands that are not metal that I really don’t see myself ever tiring of. Those would be Dance Gavin Dance and Thursday. Lyrically, Thursday always cut deep with incredible poetry and darkly realistic themes. The vocal delivery of Geoff Rickley is powerful, even though he was never an amazing singer. In fact, whiny as fuck sometimes. This was the first Thursday song I ever heard, also the first album I got. It blew my mind. Became my favorite song for years and years. I wore it out though, and now it’s just another great tune to go back to once a year or so. Hahaha If we’re gonna start posting songs that helped us discover new musical avenues, then I’ll give my two cents and post one of the first songs that got me into harder music. Nowadays, SR-71’s sound may not be terribly “hard” by any of our standards here, but when I first heard this album when I was 15-16, it was a fucking quantum leap compared to everything I was listening to at the time. Not even anything I was into that was on the top 40 didn’t compare to this. Needless to say, I was hooked from then on, and today, this album is one of my guilty pleasures/forgotten gems in my music library. |
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Post by tao on Feb 22, 2019 14:33:25 GMT -5
Wow. Almost a week; I think this is the longest the thread’s been dead.
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Post by v9733xa on Feb 22, 2019 17:47:46 GMT -5
Oh shit, sorry, i was focused on my Oscars and Improved Bands thread. Hm. I'll try to contribute again here.
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Post by v9733xa on Feb 23, 2019 13:01:42 GMT -5
I used to listen to SR-71! I remember asking my brother what the name meant because i thought they were named after a road ("SR" is usually on signs for "state route") and they were from Maryland, so i might know the road. No, my brother and aspiring aerospace engineer said to me almost two decades ago, they're named after a rocket. Neat.
I have their debut album from, yikes, how long ago was that? There was a rock radio station (I know! they used to have those years ago) that played them heavy when they first came out with "Politically Correct," a song that also got some airplay on MTV at the time, i think back in the year 2000? Honestly, it had to be that long ago since i was still in high school. Man, long ass time. Anyway, i bought that one album Now You See Inside as i liked that kind of music a lot literally half a lifetime ago. I haven't listened to it in years, but i don't really care for that music anymore. This was back when i LOVED New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, and other pop punk bands, so this slightly more rock sound was cool. Obviously, as i say about any rock song posted here, this is better than almost anything on the radio today. I'm assuming you have their first album? It's a little more fun and punk-y than this song, even though there are a couple ballads and pop stuff that's not that great. But it's got a couple good songs i could jam again. I'd probably skip through half the tracks.
American Me fucking rule. The band sort of disappeared, then came back a year or two ago with a short EP, but it's their early work that's just amazing. Here's their first music video from their debut album, a blistering 23 minutes of bouncy loud hardcore, with just a hint of nu-metal swing. Probably one of my top five albums to air drum to, just listen to that pernicious double bass. A thing of beauty. This song makes me want to kill a lot of people.
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Post by tao on Feb 23, 2019 15:53:04 GMT -5
I used to, and then it was a casualty from this past December when I sold 100+ CD’s, because I didn’t listen to it as much anymore. I’d still like to get a physical copy of “Tomorrow” though.
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Post by stringypoo on Feb 24, 2019 2:52:52 GMT -5
I used to listen to SR-71! I remember asking my brother what the name meant because i thought they were named after a road ("SR" is usually on signs for "state route") and they were from Maryland, so i might know the road. No, my brother and aspiring aerospace engineer said to me almost two decades ago, they're named after a rocket. Neat. I have their debut album from, yikes, how long ago was that? There was a rock radio station (I know! they used to have those years ago) that played them heavy when they first came out with "Politically Correct," a song that also got some airplay on MTV at the time, i think back in the year 2000? Honestly, it had to be that long ago since i was still in high school. Man, long ass time. Anyway, i bought that one album Now You See Inside as i liked that kind of music a lot literally half a lifetime ago. I haven't listened to it in years, but i don't really care for that music anymore. This was back when i LOVED New Found Glory, Good Charlotte, and other pop punk bands, so this slightly more rock sound was cool. Obviously, as i say about any rock song posted here, this is better than almost anything on the radio today. I'm assuming you have their first album? It's a little more fun and punk-y than this song, even though there are a couple ballads and pop stuff that's not that great. But it's got a couple good songs i could jam again. I'd probably skip through half the tracks. American Me fucking rule. The band sort of disappeared, then came back a year or two ago with a short EP, but it's their early work that's just amazing. Here's their first music video from their debut album, a blistering 23 minutes of bouncy loud hardcore, with just a hint of nu-metal swing. Probably one of my top five albums to air drum to, just listen to that pernicious double bass. A thing of beauty. This song makes me want to kill a lot of people. My god, I nearly forgot about American Me, but honestly, I had this album back in the day and listened to it a lot between classes when I was studying at my hometown university in Arkansas. Good times. I loved the pace of this album, and it was really quite heavy. I think I was exiting my interest in deathcore slowly around the time I got into this one. When I listened to this song just now, that breakdown section where he’s just shouting “Liar, you liar, you liar...etc” I instantly remembered how much of a banger this was. Yeah, cool band. Old stuff ruled. I don’t even like hardcore at all. Haha Speaking of hardcore, here’s my favorite hardcore release, also an oldie. Throwdown’s Haymaker album was really heavy. I remember feeling like no other hardcore album at the time had the same level of crunchy-heaviness. First time I heard the album was from it being a blind purchase. I bought it simply because I found out about bands back then by seeing the “thank you” section of albums I bought. Throwdown were frequently cited in those booklet inserts. When I first popped this album into my CD player, I was supremely disappointed, as it was not very melodic at all. Hardcore was a dry sound to me, one that wasn’t very interesting. Came back to listen to it again two years later and just loved how heavy it was. Sounds like you’re being pummeled by the guy on the cover. Hahaha |
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Post by tao on Feb 28, 2019 23:05:34 GMT -5
That was pretty decent. Similar to what you espoused above, the hardcore genre is a tough sell for me as well, and for pretty much the same reasons: the rawness of the production and sound, the lack of melody, etc., but I am trying to expand my knowledge of the genre, and hopefully, my appreciation as well, so yeah, this wasn’t bad at all.
I know I posted it in the “what are you currently listening to?” thread a couple days ago, but I’ll put it here too. Keeping with the current trend here, my selection is from a list I put together a while back over on Sputnikmusic of OG hardcore/post-hardcore/metalcore albums that either people have recommended to me or I’ve been meaning to get to and haven’t properly set aside time to listen to, and I started working my way through the list last week. This entire album was fantastic, front to back, and thoroughly blew my expectations for it out of the water; the only thing I didn’t care too highly for was how the vocals were recorded, in that it sounded like it was done in an empty room and therefore the hollowness of their sound didn’t gel quite well with the instruments.
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Post by clazza on Mar 6, 2019 3:04:27 GMT -5
That was pretty decent. Similar to what you espoused above, the hardcore genre is a tough sell for me as well, and for pretty much the same reasons: the rawness of the production and sound, the lack of melody, etc., but I am trying to expand my knowledge of the genre, and hopefully, my appreciation as well, so yeah, this wasn’t bad at all. I know I posted it in the “what are you currently listening to?” thread a couple days ago, but I’ll put it here too. Keeping with the current trend here, my selection is from a list I put together a while back over on Sputnikmusic of OG hardcore/post-hardcore/metalcore albums that either people have recommended to me or I’ve been meaning to get to and haven’t properly set aside time to listen to, and I started working my way through the list last week. This entire album was fantastic, front to back, and thoroughly blew my expectations for it out of the water; the only thing I didn’t care too highly for was how the vocals were recorded, in that it sounded like it was done in an empty room and therefore the hollowness of their sound didn’t gel quite well with the instruments. I never listened to this band before but am digging this. I like the blend of the psychedelic sound with all out hardcore. It's great and the cover is 90's as fuck mayte. This next trach is an absolute pearler. I saw these guys play in Auckland last week and they were amazing. I have liked this band for a few years now and Bummed is one of my favourite albums. |
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Post by stringypoo on Mar 6, 2019 23:29:28 GMT -5
This track made me smile. I instantly shared this music video with my neighbor, another teacher at the international school I’m working for. She found it a little creepy due to the guy dancing and that I mentioned there may have been a bit of drugs involved in this. But seriously, the dude dancing, I spent my first watch of this video wondering if he had a disability. Later reading through the youtube comments I read many people referencing drugs, and so I’m assuming that he was pretty damn high in this video, as well as probably the vocalist and a few others? Either way, drugs or not, I thoroughly enjoyed that track, and the video made me feel good. Musically it is simple, jam out music, bluesy and free. Just nice feel-good music. I’ll be checking out more of this band. Okay, for my pick, I’m going softer than usual. This is one of the older metal bands out there (started in 1978!) and they almost split up due to the passing of the vocalist, who sadly passed away maybe a year or two before this album was released, which I believe was a 2017 release. I heard this track initially and it was my intro to the band. I found it to have a magical atmosphere. Folky vocals (the dude is old, so don’t expect him to be a powerhouse), great guitar leads, and some captivating lyrics (try to catch them!) make this a really solid band to get into. I’m now hunting down my fourth album from them, as I find myself digging deeper into their sound and loving every minute of it. |
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Post by tao on Mar 13, 2019 19:46:36 GMT -5
That was actually pretty interesting; it gave me major Jethro Tull vibes, especially at the beginning and the end when it was just a single guitar and vocals. I’ve never heard of this band before, never even ran across them amongst my many musical forays whilst in the interwebs, but I’ll have to check more of this out. Nice pick, and thanks! For my pick, I’ve been a fan of these guys ever since they first began back around 2013-ish; their lineup mix between traditional Japanese instruments and modern rock instruments really put an interesting spin on things; even the way the vocalist sings with those particular vocal inflections is a classical form of Japanese singing. The first song is probably their best known song, but I’m kind of partial to the second one I posted. stringypoo, you’d probably like them a bit. |
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Post by stringypoo on Mar 13, 2019 21:32:55 GMT -5
The thread lives!!!!! Actually, this is my favorite TDM thread for numerous reasons. Happy to see it alive again, even if for a day. tao, Thanks so much for sharing that band. I really struggle with Japanese media, whether it’s anime or music, as it is extremely hit or miss with me. Not sure if I can even pinpoint the reasons, but sometimes I just can’t stand it. This was awesome. I watched both of those, and will be listening to more. This is the kind of folk metal/rock that works. The star of the show for me is the flute (for lack of knowledge of the proper name for what looks like a giant recorder from Asia) player, as he is outstanding. The Chinese harp (or Japanese one, whatevs, same same, I’ve got one in my teaching room here in my music classroom) is well used in this band setting, and thankfully it’s audible. The singing is great. I liked everything about it pretty much. Like you, I think I prefer the second track, but the first one certainly does kick the shit around more than the second one, so depends on the mood I guess. Haha. I might show this to my music classes and see what they think. A lot of my classes have students who play the Chinese harp. I picked something special for my next one. I rarely do black metal in listening or sharing anymore. This band hardly qualifies as Black metal to me at this point though. I am sharing Enslaved- “Storm Son.” I actually recently set this song to be my wake up alarm, as the first minute is so damn serene. I love the shit out of that. Now as for th music that follows the first several seconds of atmosphere, this is a band who really put a lot of attention into all the details of their songs. They’re seasoned veterans. And I don’t think any other album that came out in 2017 had this level of care to details, certainly not of any album I heard. Forget what you know about black metal, while you’re at it. If you never heard them before, this isn’t what you’re expecting when you think of the genre. My one complaint is that the clean singing found in parts of the song is a little dull sounding, but these guys are known for Viking metal as well, and I like to think the vocals reflect that influence. |
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Post by tao on Mar 13, 2019 23:57:59 GMT -5
The flute is called the Shakuhachi and the Chinese harp is known as the Koto, or in Chinese, the Zheng (箏), or Guzheng (古箏).
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Post by stringypoo on Mar 22, 2019 6:42:09 GMT -5
Awwww....this cool cool cool thread seems to have died again...
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Post by tao on Mar 22, 2019 8:19:57 GMT -5
Awwww....this cool cool cool thread seems to have died again... I apologize, I can’t get into black metal, no matter how hard I try.  |
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Post by v9733xa on Mar 22, 2019 17:11:14 GMT -5
Boy, yeah i really really do NOT like black metal, and that song absolutely does not change my mind. Woof. It's like the pretentious indie bullshit of, i dunno, The National or some dumbass band, had a reclusive goth twin brother... that's black metal.
I suppose i can't deny the musicianship and talent of that group, or of many black metal artists. You can't just strap on a guitar and drop behind a drum set and play a black metal song out of nowhere; it's not a pop punk band. So, props for the construction of the song. It's still massively repetitive, droning, and boring to me. That rapid guitar riff in EVERY. SINGLE. BLACK. METAL. SONG. is just soooooo played out that i can't understand how anybody could listen to a whole album of that. Even this 10-minute song was a huge struggle. Glad i listened to it though, so i know what this band sounds like.
I fucking love Hatebreed, for the most important reason that they effectively got me into hardcore. There is something about this particular song -- and the album on which it features, The Rise of Brutality -- that i feel is a perfect bridge to get somebody into this genre who hasn't dug it before. It came out an essential time for me, which i was listening to a lot of heavy music, but oddly really didn't like hardcore at all. I thought it was all too sloppy and silly, or too serious and angry. Somehow, a band called Hatebreed found all the in-roads to be that exact group i needed to show me how polished yet still visceral hardcore could sound. SIXTEEN goddamn years ago (wow!) this track blew me away, and opened up an entire genre that i had neglected for a few years. I know that Hatebreed purists love their first full-length and of course the legendary follow-up Perseverance, but this record and this particular song will always be really special to me. Lyrics that work, words you can actually hear and understand, bouncy loud head-banging breakdowns, a nifty memorable riff. I mean, just that intro! It's easily one of the best intro hardcore guitar riffs of all time.
What i'm trying to say is, that if i were a Major League Baseball player, this would be my walk-up music. I wanna see that just one time, please.
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