Any other metal heads on the forum?

I'm a 33 year old life long metal lover. I am always on the look-out for new (definately not NU) metal that will also sound good on my axioms. I do like other music (Absentia sounds like heaven now on the Axioms) but my first and only true love is metal.

On another post I explained that I found out I had a problem with my Yamaha receiver which made all my music sound harsh and thin. Long story short, I now have a panasonic receiver and even "poor" recordings such as And Justice for All now sound damn good, and good recordings...well they are keeping me up way to late at night.

Now that I have a system that makes me smile everytime I turn it on, I am back on the prowl for new music.

My absolute lifelong favorite albums are Metallica's 2nd, 3rd and 4th albums. Others come and go, but these are the gold standard. Orion may be my favorite piece of music ever...

Other favorite albums include:

Scenes from a Memory - Dream Theater
Morningrise - Opeth
Operation Mindcrime - Queensryche
Burnt Offerings - Iced Earth
Light of Day Day of Darkness - Green Carnation
Prison of Desire - After Forever
The Sound of Perserverance - Death
Seasons in the Abyss - Slayer
Tool - 10,000 Days
Rust in Peace - only great Megadeth album
The Chemical Wedding - Bruce Dickinson - sound quality sounds dead on this one, even on the new receiver

The metal albums I have that have very good sound quality:

Ghost Reveries/Blackwater Park - Opeth
Most of Dream Theater, especially Awake
With Oden on our Side - Amon Amarth
Christ Illusion - Slayer
Load and Reload - Metallica (too bad the music itself isn't as good)
Glorious Burden - Iced Earth
10,000 days - Tool
DCC Gold version of Ride the Lightning

I am looking for 2 things. Metal that is recorded well, and metal that fits my taste that I may not know about. I have around 300 albums, and now that music sounds so damn good I need to greatly increase this number.

thanks!

Highly recommended - Metallica Live Sh!t good live recording. Plus live DVD included

Black Sabbath Symptom of the Universe Best of 2 cd set remastered sounds great.

Tool - Undertow, Lateralus, Aenima, 10,000 Days
Alice in Chains- Dirt
Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power

Ive got alot of metal on vinyl now that dates me. Im not really that old,just like vinyl.

Be sure to check out Gamma Ray. The German band "Helloween" has been through a lot-and the real core of Helloween formed Gamma Ray. They still produce music and it's awesome unlike most of what Helloween puts out.

Iced Earth is great too, good to see them get a mention. Horror show has a lot of really great pieces for enjoying with your speakers-especially toward the end of the album with Dracula, Phantom of the Opera, and Transylvania.

Some other good metal bands:
Freedom Call
Luca Turilli
Rhapsody

Those bands are more of a 'fantasy metal' so some of the songs are pretentious, but the music is all good. Luca Turilli is part of Rhapsody and he likes to compose music for an orchestra. The result is a cool mix of metal guitars and classical instruments.

Wow, hard to find another fellow metal head in this forum, it has been a while! Congratulations Cameron on your Axioms, metal cannot sound better than with them. I bought them with metal in mind and auditon. Especially paired with Rotel separates (see my signature).

I mostly listen to European Power metal, but also some traditional Heavy Metal, and Melodic Death (Gotheburg style). I think I beat everybody here in terms of collection: over 400 metal albums, all in CDs. Not too much fan of mp3s, even thought I can connect my ipod to my system. By the way, "To Dust You will Decay" from Angel Dust is one of my favorite albums of all time! I have many favorite bands and keep exploring. Here are some relatively new ones (last ten years or so):

Sonata Arctica
Lost Horizon
Gaia Epicus
Falconer
Persuader
Twilight Guardians
Freternia
Cryonic Temple
Axenstar
Edguy

Oh yeah, try on "Crotchduster" for size as well. So goooood!

To continue my list...

Dragonforce
Nightwish (excellent opera female fronted power metal)
Guardians of Time
Insania (stockholm)
Nocturnal Rites
Nostradameus
Sabaton

Trust me, listen to metal (real one with all musical, instrumental arrangements) in a nice audio system gives it a totally new experience.

Thyname

Cool, I only recongnize a couple of bands on your list. I have Nightwish Oceanborn, and it is excellent. I HIGHLY recommend you check out a band called After Forever. They are somewhat similar to Nightwish, but have a more metal edge to them and they have grunts and growls to go along with the soprano singer. I have heard many of these types of bands, but no album I have heard compares to their first one called Prison of Desire.

I have some homework to do, I am going to look into the bands that have been suggested so far.

Jordan,

I listened to clips of Caliban, and it sounded pretty good but the reviews scared me off a bit... I guess they are real similar to Killswitch Engage or possible Shadows Fall. I like those two bands, but they have that first impression appeal but grow tiresome quickly and now I almost never listen to them.

VH1 just did a top 20 metal bands of all time. Of course many of the picks were silly (WASP, Poison on the list but no Pantera?!?) but you have to expect that. I can't remember all of it, but the top 5 was:

5. Judas Priest
4. Black Sabbath
3. Iron Maiden
2. ACDC
1. Metallica

I thought you were required by law to pick Black Sabbath as #1!

My picks for top 10:

10. Type O Negative/Fear Factory
9. Slayer
8. Pantera
7. Queensryche (even if Mindcrime was their only album)
6. Iron Maiden
5. Tool
4. Iced Earth
3. Opeth
2. Dream Theater
1. Metallica

Hey Cameron, I've hear After Forever, good band. However, Nightwish stands out among other female-fronted bands. While the others are mostly "gothic" metal, as well as "beauty and the beast" type with male growling vocal mixed, Nightwish is mostly "power metal" with all instrumental arrangments, riffs, rythm and melodies. Nightwish had those male growling vocals earlier in their career. Pity Tarja was recently fired. I was hoping to see them live in concert in U.S last year, but unfortunately they canceled all North America shows. Only hope they can find another female singer, and continue where they left. By the way, Oceanborn is my second favorite album from Nightwish after "Wishmaster".

As for the ranking, Iron Maiden should be number one, not only for the tradition and history, but also for the consistent quality of their material. Up the Irons!!

I don't know if you still like CDs Cameron, but I can suggest a couple of mail order onlie stores with great prices and selection:

TheEndRecords.com (free shipping, huge selection, great customer service)

SentinelSteel.com (power metal specialist, based in NJ. Denis has his own label but only his online store with all power metal titles you may want. Great second hand CD collection as well)

CMDistro.com. Online store of Century Media.

I am strictly a CD guy. I just never got into downloading, I have to have the real thing. I'll be looking into those 3 sites.

Hey, I love Maiden too. As far as them being consistent, I agree. I don't like to admit it, but my favorite album of theirs is Brave New World. The new one is pretty good too; man I wish Metallica had stuck to their roots like Maiden has. If only they had continued their direction from And Justice for All. It was like they were on the cusp of creating a new genre, progressive thrash (as far as I know it doesn't exist) only to dumb it way down on the next album.

Just getting counted in. I love all types of music but at 37 years, the metal blood still rules.

Best of all, Metal never died! Every other generation's music quickly became uncool as they got older but take a look around, I am seeing more teen agers in AC/DC, Black Sabbath, KISS, and Led Zeppelin shirts than when I was young! Dark side of the Moon Logo's are everywhere! (OK that's not really metal but it is classic.) Death Metal and Thrash is raging over Europe again.

My 16 year old nephew asked me a for a copy of my AC/DC concert DVD for Christmas. I was so impressed, I bought him a real copy and threw in Metalica for good measure.

Along with veteran rockers reappearing everywhere, new bands are keeping up the tradition too.

-- Three Days Grace is simply a old fashioned, hard workin rock band.

-- System of a Down keeps us hard core guys awake,

-- Billy Talent is keeping hard rock with a punk influence alive and well.

--Nickleback, like em or not, are the new heroes of Stadium Rock, taking over where Bon Jovi left off before they went all 'metrosexual'.

--Seether's new album is totally influenced by good old old fashioned metal, even if the kids don't realize it.

Tool is definitely breaking new ground. I don't know what the heck to call their music with it's odd numbered drum counts but it's extremely addictive. I had this freaking out my friends in my Jeep stereo for weeks before I took it into the house.

Anyway, to shorten, it's great for somebody getting closer to 40 than 30, to be able to go into a music store, buy his favorite music and not get a look from the clerk like I'm an old fart. Instead, I often get "That's a kickass CD."

Makes me smile !!!

Now anybody got some old bands they have forgotten about that you are almost afraid to mention?
Anyone remember W.A.S.P.

Nickelback

Now you get to make fun of a band I like.

There always seemed to be a fine line between "metal awesomeness" and "homoeroticism"

For example:
Thor - is that a big sword or are you just happy to see me?
Venom - more phallic images : skull staff or stripper pole, Chronos?
Bathory - (RIP Quarthon!)
Raven - I hate to admit I owned this album. Never noticed they wore undies before.

Probably a ton of other examples (even without dipping into hair bands) as well.

Bren R.

That is what people look at first (at the pictures) and start despising metal, without even listening to any of it!! I agree, many of their photos create some very, very bad impressions!!! I feel embarassed myself. However, one should really listen prior to trashing them, they might find good surprises (Quarthon, for example).

And yes, Manowar really look stupid in pictures and concerts for that matter, but I can find a lot of great tracks in their long career indeed. Only Majesty (germany) can equal them on how much metal they claim to be (or sing about) instead of producing metal.

As for the good quality metal CDs, I found the majority of the new material really good in my Rotel/Axiom system, however only a few really stand out. Murph, Helloween latest album (Keeper - legacy) is really good sound quality and not such good music quality. I agree older albums, such as "Walls of Jericho" and both "Keepers" even the "remastered" versions do not sound good at all in a good system. Pity they were their best!

I found the last three albums of Iron Maiden (beginning from Brave New World) of great sound quality in my system. If fact, even their older material is not bad either in their "enhanced" third issue CDs. I don't know if you have seen Rock in Rio DVD: one of the best music DVDs ever, sound and picture wise!!!

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Bren,

I just bought Angel Dust last night off of Amazon. Is it all it's cracked up to be? The reviews are some of the best I've seen for an album. Also, how does is sound on Axioms?

Angel Dust was a great follow-up to "The Real Thing". It was not a commercial hit like "TRT", but sometimes that is a good thing. "Mid-Life Crisis" and "Be Aggressive" are my favorite songs, but there is plenty to enjoy. I just never understood why their follow-up to "Angel Dust" was a cover of Lionel Richie's "Easy"

My eyes!

Metallica never did anything homoerotic.

Well, at least not on album covers.

Sure, Peter, especially if "choral" is defined broadly. First, arguably the greatest Russian choral work, Rachmaninoff's Vespers(All-night Vigil). Then a little change of pace with Carmina Burana . The wordless chorus plays a prominent part in Ravel's gorgeous Daphnis et Chloe , so it qualifies. Since Beethoven's 9th is his "choral symphony", lets add that, especially since I recently discovered what's now my favorite performance, by Wand , who(Ken should be pleased)omits the scraping chair passage.

Ah, well then! I'll miss the chair scraping, but you have to move with the times. I doubt there are many skilled chair scrapers out there any more.

Frankly John, I am amazed at your memory.

Thanks for all the suggestions Thyname and for the pics BrenR and Pmbuko.....I think.

New signature might have to be borrowed from some people and modified.

"Enjoy the Music, not the fashion."

As for Rock in Rio, I still have not seen that yet. I ordered it from Amazon and they incorrectly shipped me "Rockin in Rio" by Rush. I kept it anyways and it's also a great concert but I have not yet tried it on the new Axioms.

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I agree, many of their photos create some very, very bad impressions!!! I feel embarassed myself. However, one should really listen prior to trashing them, they might find good surprises (Quarthon, for example).

Again, I'm a reformed metal, er... fan? I had all the posters from Metal Edge magazine on my walls as a kid. You have to admit it's pretty easy to look back and laugh though. Backcombed and teased platinum blonde hair and spandex stick out as much at disco afros and platform boots.

And bad fashion didn't just apply to metal...
Remember when Michael Jackson was black?
How about when Christina Aguilera was white?
Alanis Morrisette got her first false-start in the 80s.
Even Uncle Hank (Henry Rollins) once looked like this.

Bren R.

Henry looks the most similar to now. He's certainly bulked up a bit, though. Still didn't have a neck then, apparently.

Hey all.....long time no talk.

Another place to go for metal cd's is dynastymetalmusic.com

The owner is a great guy who ships fast. Best of all his prices are fair. As for music, some cd's that are in constant rotation in my system are:

Fate - V (Outstanding cd!)
Thunderstone - Tools Of Destruction
Evidence One - Tattooed Heart
Brainstorm - Liquid Monster
Pink Cream 69 - Thunderdome
Victory - They are all good!
Primal Fear - Seven Seals

Saber Tiger - Project One (This cd features Akihito Kinoshita on lead guitar. Many consider him to be the best all around metal guitar player walking the planet today - Ron Keel from of course KEEL looks after the vocals)

Lacuna Coil - Karmacode (The best female fronted band out there at the moment)

Edguy - Rocket Ride

I can list a whole lot more but that will give you some idea as to what this 39 year old metal head is up to!

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Henry looks the most similar to now. He's certainly bulked up a bit, though. Still didn't have a neck then, apparently.

The hair, man... the HAIR!

Bren R.

Yeah, whatever... Nuttin' wrong with long hair.

At least yours has an affinity to your scalp rather than the clouds.

Only when I tie it back...

Quote:

As for the good quality metal CDs, I found the majority of the new material really good in my Rotel/Axiom system, however only a few really stand out. Murph, Helloween latest album (Keeper - legacy) is really good sound quality and not such good music quality. I agree older albums, such as "Walls of Jericho" and both "Keepers" even the "remastered" versions do not sound good at all in a good system. Pity they were their best!

You should check out Gamma Ray. That's the band that Kai Hansen (Helloween) formed-I think shortly after Keeper Part II, but I'm not sure. Every time I've bought a Helloween album since Chameleon I've been hoping to see a return to the earlier style of Helloween. I only recently discovered Gamma Ray (I had heard of them but I never gave them a listen) and I now realize that Kai Hansen took the soul of the band with him. The first album I got was Majestic, and I didn't like it that much-but I got "Blast From the Past" which is a greatest hits, and there are a lot of awesome tracks that sound great on my speakers.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I keep a shopping list of sorts on my Blackberry for those very few times lately I have extra cash to spend.

Quote:

You should check out Gamma Ray.

Of course I know Gamma Ray, great material, but started to repeat themselves (and early Helloween) after a while. I agree Kai is a great musician.

My favorite album is "Powerplant" Check it out! Also see my earlier post for a list of very similar European bands.

Wow, who knew that so many old-school bangers grew up to write on forums!? I'm one of ya!

Someone earlier mentioned Faith No More - both of their first two LPs crushed all!!! Additionally, bend an ear to Judas Priest's 'Hero/Hero' LP, from wayyy back...

Anyway, funny as hell to run into old-schoolers like you fellows Oh ya, check out Fist's 'Fleet Street' and Death Angel's 'The Ultraviolence'

Andrew D.
www.cdnav.com

Yes, I agree!

I listen to all types of music, and my main "brand" is rock/hard rock/metal. I really enjoy most, especially Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Y&T, AC/DC, and some of the lesser knowns - Saxon, Krokus,Tesla...and the list could go on forever...

I think that the lines get blurred and we try too hard to categorize bands. I have approximately 2000 pieces of music (CD's and LP's), and it would take days to get a list of the good works.

It would certainly be a walk down memory lane!!!

Maiden's "Rock in Rio" finally arrived!!
Wow! Just Wow!

Also inspired me to finally watch, "Metal, a Headbangers Journey" that I had on my PVR for weeks. A very interesting documentary on the origin's, growth and current state of all types of metal and it's fans. It's a must see for anybody interested not just in metal, but in sociology or phsycology.

Speaking of pshycology, last year I went on a work trip trip where I also went to see a friend play in a symphony, we went to a Blues club afterwards and then I flew back and stayed an extra night in Halifax for a Motley Crue concert with my brother. You should have seen my schytzophrenic suitcase of clothes.

I wouldn't consider myself strictly a metal head but I do listen to a lot of heavy music that does get lumped into the metal genre. As far as metal I listen to a lot of doom, drone, sludge, crust, d-beat and even old school death and black metal if I'm in the right mood.

I'm sure after sharing I've now lost any potential friends I could have made on this forum!

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I wouldn't consider myself strictly a metal head but I do listen to a lot of heavy music that does get lumped into the metal genre. As far as metal I listen to a lot of doom, drone, sludge, crust, d-beat and even old school death and black metal if I'm in the right mood.

I'm sure after sharing I've now lost any potential friends I could have made on this forum!

Wow, I have listened to hard rock/metal for 20+ years, but have never heard all those sub-genres! Care to note the differences between them?

Or can i view it on wikipedia?

And don't tell me crust has to do with the sound that 3-day old underwear makes!!!

>And don't tell me crust has to do with the sound that 3-day >old underwear makes!!

Well no, but the people making it might know that sound intimately...heh.

Reading this thread I wanted to make a shameless plug for a radio show I sort of grew up listening to, http://www.rootofallevil.com/ played on a Minneapolis community radio station http://www.kfai.org/

Okay, well maybe not grew up, but I first discovered it when I was 14 or 15 and am now 30. But it's the only show of its kind that I've heard. Usually starting at 1:06 (66) in the morning of Sunday (CST) and going until 6:06 (66) am. Usually it will start off playing stuff like bootleg Iron Maiden, Manowar, Black Sabbath, maybe Dead Kennedys, and then sort of slowly descends down that path (Metallica to Brujeria to Pestilence to Goatlord to whatever nonsenseblackmetalyoukidsareintothesedays...or maybe Frank Zappa).

To be honest, since moving from Mpls years ago I've not had much of a chance to listen to the show, lacking a high-speed Internet connection at home, but I wanted to make the plug all the same. Earl Root(who, from the site, sounds like he's fallen quite ill since I've left home, my heart goes out to him), the DJ, is just about the most stand-up straight-shooting goofball metalhead you'll ever know. So give the show a listen if you've got the hours. Not the best quality and you need RealPlayer (bleh), but worth checking out at least an archive or two if you're into metal.

Greetings all,

This is my first post after reading the Axiom forums for months. As a metalhead for 25 years, I figured this forum would be the appropriate place to dive in.

Some of my favourites of the past few years that I'd recommend checking out:

Lamb of God - Sacrament
Fear Factory - Demanufacture (reissue; killer sound)
Hanzel und Gretyl - Scheissmessiah (industrial metal)
Judas Priest - Vengeance and Defenders (remastered - again, excellent sound)
Children of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll; Are you Dead Yet?
Dark Tranquility - Character
Rammstein - any and all albums

And, for those who only go as far as hard rock:

Wolfmother - s/t
Priestess - Hello Master
Monster Magnet - Monolithic Baby!

I "only" have a pair of M3's as my receiver is in the living room. But, man, they really, really kick!

Ahhh ... that felt good.

I went through my Opeth collection based on a fellow metal lover here. It is amazing how much "new stuff" you hear from them, that you didn't pay attention the first few times! "Morningrise" is simply brilliant, so is "Orchid". I don't know what happened to them with "Still life"?! Not even close.

Hi There, Been a metal head for 25 years. Also like everything else except country, just can't listen to that genre.

A friend of mine brought a cd called Catch 33 by Messugha. Great music, check it out !. Bass is an 8 stringer and the music is intensly tight.

Also love Opeth, Suffocation,Cryptopsy, Fear Factory etc..
My main bands since forever are : AC/DC, Rush, Queensryche, Marillion and a few others. Not metal, but awsome music none the less.

Cheers,

Stephane

By the way, I am going to watch Dark Tranquillity live tomorrow night here in Northern VA. Great band. I was listening today to their "Gallery" album, after several years of not listening. What a masterpiece!