He doesn't always use that pattern (refferring to all of their 8 albums). On many of their older albums you can't really tell what is supposed to be the verse and what is supposed to be the chorus anyway. They change things up so much that very little is repeated on most of their songs (unlike Ghost Reveries).

You may find that the growling grows on you over time, I know it did with me. To me it fits the mood of the music perfectly, although to be honest it's not like I'm sitting there missing it on the songs where there are no growls...

Ooh aah, I am going to have to get out the Kings X. I haven't listened to that in while.

Jeb

This seems like just the thread to jump in on. I JUST ordered Axioms today and my musical diet is probably 95% metal and 5% Frank Zappa and "other."

Given that you're not into growling, and your metal tastes so far seem all "aboveground," I'd recommend the following bands.

Just google their names with myspace, as i think they all have streaming samples.

Doomsword

Pelican (no growling, because they're no singing. good choice given you like Isis)

Electric Wizard (punish the low end of your system )

Slough Feg (and earlier listed under the longer "The Lord Weird Slough Feg. )

Hour of 13 (since you like early Ozzy/Sabbath)

Mastery (Instrumental thrash riffing marathons!)

Overkill (earlier, maybe something like Years of Decay or Horrorscope, given your earlier thrash preferences)

Ulver (admittedly not as metal as they once were, but if you want some great stuff to crank up with lots of layers to discover.. pick up their newest: Shadows of the Sun)

Blind Guardian (no growls, quite a few addicting songs. newest one is quite good)

Symphony X (more on the progressive side. tight playing, good riffs, no growls.)

Ark (Get the 'Burn the Sun' album. Catchy slightly progressive songs, fantastic drumming and singing.)

Sir Lord Baltimore (If you liked Zeppelin, try these guys but only the albums "Kingdom Come" and their self-titled, which sell now as a double. Later on, they went soft.)

Wolf. (Their last album "The Black Flame" is pretty fun. Again, lots of catchy songs. Probably closer to hard rock.)

I could do this all night, I also help to produce a small underground metal podcast. (search for "Shadow Kingdom Radio" in the iTunes store, it's free to subscribe)

We'll see how these treat you first and get to more reccomendations later.

Welcome to the board. I like your handle. Here's hoping your Axioms arrive swiftly and you can offer us your impressions.

Thanks for the welcome. I did the free high gloss cherry promotion, so not sure if that adds too long to the order but I hope they're pretty swift as well.

I'm not sure what the OP was hearing on iTunes that he didn't like, but there's a lot of stuff out there. There's some really thriving metal communities in Europe (places you might not expect like Italy and Greece) that don't get a lot of play here in the west, and I'm pretty much obsessive/compulsive about finding good metal so I'm sure I can help.

Also I'm curious... does anyone here have the full Epic 80 7.4 with all the EP600s? That official photo cracks me up. It looks like an alien invasion!

Oops... I usually stick to the Water Cooler and Technical... I forgot I was well-meaningly slinging poo up here.

Bren R.

^ Undoubtedly you are a fan of the Poo Fighters...

I have no idea what it was that I was hearing. I haven't checked it out since I bought the Isis album a few weeks ago (the main computer is in the room where the baby sleeps, soooooo.... not all that available to me except on weekends.)

Stuntgibbon,

I was intrigued by your description of Mastery, "Instrumental thrash riffing marathons!" this made me think of Orion, Call of Ktulu, and To Live is To Die and I started drooling...

I checked out some of their song clips on amazon, and I really liked what I heard. They did sound pretty repetitive, but I don't mind that at all if it's really good. - Wow, I'm listening to a clip of "Power Race" right now, and it's goooood -
So does it get old or is it so good that you don't mind the repetitiveness?

I tend not to be bored by it on a full listen, and it also helps that the playing time is pretty short on Lethal Legacy. (their only release so far I think) It's basically an EP of 5 or 6 songs with some added demo versions of them tacked on.

Personally, I think it's a great sort of band for short car trips. Really powerful and driving, helps you speed.