Metal track(s) of the day.

This was Wino's track on the "Probot" album with Dave Grohl. Love this one!

For today, how's about some Dan Swanö?

Edge of Sanity (Melodeath with Swanö on vocals and guitar)

Twilight


Velvet Dreams


Moontower (Solo album, 1998)

Add Reality


Sun of the Night


Steel (Swanö singing traditional metal with the Morningrise lineup of Opeth as his band)

Heavy Metal Machine


Rock Tonite

Note taken: No one likes melodeath.

For today, my favorite King's X song.

Goldilox

The studio version of Goldilox doesn't even come close to capturing what the song sounds like live.

I've never considered King's X to be a metal band, they are too good to be a metal band.

S.D. wrote:

The studio version of Goldilox doesn't even come close to capturing what the song sounds like live.

I've never considered King's X to be a metal band, they are too good to be a metal band.

I've heard the version where the crowd sings the verses. That would've been awesome to be a part of live.

King's X's first two albums seem pretty metal to me, though I'm not a huge fan of their albums after Dogman.

It's all personal perception. I consider metal to be "Judas Priest or heavier". King's X to me is just a "heavy rock band".

"Judas Priest or heavier" seems like a good bar to judge by. Although, it all depends on what you define as "heavy".

That's why I'm trying my best not to "define" things too often and just enjoy music for what it is. I think over-analyzing music on the internet has taken away some of the joy of just experiencing it. I remember when I was younger I really didn't care what something was called, I just listened to music that moved me. Nowadays everyone is an armchair historian and critic and I don't think that has added anything to music, it just creates arguments and rifts and people creating new subgenres every 30 seconds.

It doesn't have to be as complex as we're making it.

I try not to dissect each and everything I listen to into subgenres; especially stuff like Steely Dan where it's an amalgamation of many different styles. You can't really pigeon-hole everything into neat groups all the time.

I try to employ the Fat Freddy Music Classification System (FFMCS). Something either "sucks" or "doesn't suck".

SpectreFate wrote:

I try to employ the Fat Freddy Music Classification System (FFMCS). Something either "sucks" or "doesn't suck".

It's served me well for many years. Keeps things simple, doesn't it??

Leatherwolf: The band best known for their triple lead guitar approach. IMO, they're one of the better lesser known metal bands of the 80's (along with Fifth Angel, Sanctuary, Jag Panzer, etc).

Cry Out


Kill and Kill Again


Rise or Fall

I dig Leatherwolf a lot too. But really their best songs can fit on one CD.

"Field Of Hours" by The Obsessed.

Wino is a truly unique songwriter in a world full of clones. Love the riff that comes in at 2:57.

Reviving this thread with one of my favorite metal bands, Jag Panzer.

1984's Ample Destruction is one of the most beloved underground metal classics out there. The production is shit, but it adds to the album's charm, imo.

Harder Than Steel


They went on hiatus for a long while, but they came back with the Fourth Judgement in 1997.

Shadow Thief


They've released a slew of great power-prog albums since then, my favorites being Mechanized Warfare and Thane to the Throne. The latter is a metal concept album based on the story of Macbeth.

Take to the Sky


Tragedy of Macbeth

Also, I should note that they released a groove metal album in '93 (with a different singer that tries way too hard to sound like Phil Anselmo) that has received unanimously shitty reviews. Honestly, I have no interest in giving it a listen.

I honestly think the term "groove metal" is one of the dumbest of all descriptions. Bootsy Collins would laugh his ass of if you played him some of the stuff that gets labeled as "groove".

Plus, go and listen to albums like Hell Bent For Leather, British Steel and Point Of Entry...KILLER fucking grooves on those albums, but you never hear anyone call Priest a fucking "groove metal" band.

I blame Metallica and the other thrash bands for bringing the "military march" rat-a-tat, precision, machine based drumming...killing off any kind of actual swing from metal. It got so fucking dull. That's why KYUSS sounded so great when they came out in the early 90s...it was like WOW! Fucking SWING has returned to drumming, a wonderful cool drink of water after many years of crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch-crunch-crunch rhythms.

Excellent points, SD. That's why I say Gar is the best "Metal" drummer ever, there are a few others who don't sound mechanical but he is my personal fave.

Don't get me wrong, that style of drumming is fine when done well, my problem is that as the 80s progressed people like Lars inspired many others to go that route and it got boring because everyone was trying to sound like a combination of Lars and Neil Peart (minus the finesse)...too many people all going for the same style.

Even an album like Rust In Peace which I think is one of the best technical thrash albums...sound like a computer is behind the drum kit, a human metronome with no style whatsoever...then of coure there is Dream Theater...ugh.

An album like Priest's "Painkiller" is a perfect example of how horribly wrong that style went. I would MUCH rather listen to Dave Holland on Screaming For Vengeance than that wanker Priest hired on Painkiller.

I'm a sucker for great US power metal; and plus, there's a shit ton of it to go around.

Some of my favorites:

Fifth Angel - In the Fallout


Sanctuary - Termination Force


Titan Force - Lord of Desire


Crimson Glory - Painted Skies


Warlord - Deliver Us From Evil


Gargoyle - Nothing is Sacred

Familiar with a few of those. I used to own that Warlord on vinyl, that seems like it was 100 years ago. I also vaguely remember Fifth Angel but I'm pretty sure it was a different album that I heard. I also owned that Sanctuary album, though I never heard them described as power metal until right now. The only thing I really remember about that Sanctuary album is the cover of "White Rabbit".

It's probably been at least 20 years since I heard any of that stuff.

S.D. wrote:

Familiar with a few of those. I used to own that Warlord on vinyl, that seems like it was 100 years ago. I also vaguely remember Fifth Angel but I'm pretty sure it was a different album that I heard. I also owned that Sanctuary album, though I never heard them described as power metal until right now. The only thing I really remember about that Sanctuary album is the cover of "White Rabbit".

It's probably been at least 20 years since I heard any of that stuff.

Now that school's back in, I've got less time to listen to music, so I've been listening to more metal. More stuff that's easily digested in one sitting. Quite unlike what I would listen to with time on my hands, like prog or jazz.

So look forward to this thread getting bumped all the time.

I've attempted to listen to some metal in the past couple weeks, but most times I find I'm not in the mood for it and turn it off after a couple songs.

At the moment I'm enjoying very melodic stuff, dare I say even "pretty".

Although it's unplugged, I'll still post this here. This song is a real pick-me-up, which I needed today.

Bruce Dickinson - Tears of the Dragon

Wow! Unplugged? That was kewl. I have all of Bruce-Bruce's albums and the ones available in deluxe as well but no live albums. Does he have any live unplugged, Met?