Darkest Desires

[Dusty Chalk]

So I was talking with Colin on Sunday, and I decided we need to have a darkest desires thread, so feel free to pop in with whatever metal, black metal, goth, industrial, or experimental music you've been listening to lately, have questions about, or need recommendations on.

This came about because Colin and I realized we had similar tastes in music, but I couldn't remember the names of all the bands that I liked, so I'd start by going over those again, mostly just as an exercise in memory more than anything else.

The Gathering -- not really metal, although they used to be before Anneke joined them. Personally, I'm really happy with where they went, and sad that the journey is over. Mandylion and Nighttime Birds are the two hardest albums; How to Measure a Planet? is my personal favorite; if_then_else returns to some of the harder stuff while keeping the hooks of HtMaP; and Home just ends the whole affair on a very sombre note. I just looked (while verifying the discography) that they have a new album The West Pole coming out with multiple lead vocalists sitting in? and a 13 minute epic title track (!). I'm excited.

Theatre of Tragedy was the one I couldn't remember. I actually like their later stuff better, it's kind of got an industrial thing going on with the keyboards and the heavy male vocals: Musique, Assembly, and Storm.

I also mentioned Tristania to Colin -- I really liked Illumination, but I must've not replaced World of Glass and Ashes when I reloaded my iPod, as I really like those two, too. And yes, that's not what Dark Angel likes but I don't care -- I like what I like.

Other things within the same vein: Leaves' Eyes; Sirenia; Within Temptation; Lacuna Coil; Epica; Nightwish.

I'm also into Birthday Massacre. Alright, now we're getting into more Curve/Garbage-y territory, but do you know what? That's alright by me.

And yes, I have to still get into Elis and After Forever and everything else that Amazon keeps recommending me.

So that's what I've got for now, what've you got?

[n_maher]

paging en480c4...

[postjack]

always thought this thread title was stupid.

[en480c4]

Who cares about the title... It's a great opportunity to talk about some great music that suffers from overgenrefication without pidgeonholing artists.

Just remember... It doesn't have to be metal to be dark. And I it dark.

[aardvark baguette]

Frightmare FTW. Edited February 17, 2009 by aardvark baguette

[faust3d]

O.L.D aka Old Lady Drivers is a cool grind experimental band. James Plotkin, who was OLD's leader, also has a lot of really good projects, like The Joy of Disease and his band Phantomsmasher.

Lo Flux Tube is especially cool album by O.L.D check it out if you like crazy experimental grind.

[Fungi]

I heard Horse Rotorvator a long time ago and loved it, a friend just sent me Ether and it's great, so I'm just going to throw Coil out here preemptively while I obtain some of his music.

[deepak]

Esoteric- The Maniacal Vale

Newest doom metal album from these Bri'ish doom metallers. Good stuff.

[en480c4]

The Gathering -- not really metal <snip> The West Pole coming out with multiple lead vocalists sitting in? and a 13 minute epic title track (!). I'm excited.

Home is definitely my favorite The Gathering album, but I'm admittedly a late-comer to the game. I remember giving them a shot when I was looking for stuff that was much heavier and feeling fairly disappointed. But upon revisiting them after seeing Anneke sing on the Within Temptation Black Symphony DVD I found there's a lot to like.

I also mentioned Tristania to Colin -- I really liked Illumination, but I must've not replaced World of Glass and Ashes when I reloaded my iPod, as I really like those two, too. And yes, that's not what Dark Angel likes but I don't care -- I like what I like.

Fuck what everyone else says! Having said that, World of Glass never did much for me, and Ashes is definitely better than it gets credit for. Widows Weeds is definitely my favorite. It's such a solid album from start to finish. Ashes, and the very strong Illumination, have a strong gothic Sisters of Mercy vibe to me.

Other things within the same vein: Leaves' Eyes; Sirenia; Within Temptation; Lacuna Coil; Epica; Nightwish.

I've never given much consideration to Leaves' Eyes... Samples left me unimpressed. Sirenia often sounds like a poor-man's Tristania to me, for obvious reasons. Their albums are wildly uneven, from fairly decent to comicly bad. And I still don't understand the appeal of Nightwish. Worlds of "meh" to me.

I definitely get the Within Temptation and Lacuna Coil grouping. But they seem to be two bands going in totally different directions. I think WT is getting stronger and stronger (though I do understand why long-term fans didn't warm to The Heart of Everything) and LC seems to be going in the wrong direction.

Epica is probably my favorite of that group. Earlier albums were pretty good, but The Divine Conspiracy was a huge step forward. Songwriting, production, Simone's vocals... All much improved.

I'm also into Birthday Massacre. Alright, now we're getting into more Curve/Garbage-y territory, but do you know what? That's alright by me.

Alright by me, too! It's a weird combination of dark but upbeat-ish.

And yes, I have to still get into Elis and After Forever and everything else that Amazon keeps recommending me.

I wouldn't necessarily worry about checking out everything Amazon recommends... Elis is another "meh" for me, and After Forever? Despite hearing how great they are for a long, long time, I couldn't have been more disappointed. Are Floor's vocals strong? Yes. Can I find anything else redeeming in the cheesy, 2nd rate songs? Nope.

----

Doom:VS is probably my favorite recent doom band. Definitely worth checking out if you haven't heard them.

[Dusty Chalk]

I loved the Heart of Everything, even more than the Silent Force. I had actually forgotten what I put in the player, and was just plain digging it. Yeah, it's a departure from Mother Earth, but that's fine by me.

I'll definitely have to check out Doom:VS. I would have to say that Swallow the Sun is my favorite most recent discovery.

And tossers who don't like the title (I.E. Jacob and Jack), shut your faces. What was the point of that besides to threadcrap? Grab a shovel, stand in front of a mirror, and do your best to hit yourselves in the back of the head with it.

Fungi -- Coil is actually an excellent example of why I included "experimental", rather than just leaving it at metal, industrial, and gothic.

Edited February 18, 2009 by Dusty Chalk

[ecclesand]

Some of my favorites are Draconian (Arcane Rain Fell), Crematory (all albums), and Therion (all albums). If you're into Industrial type metal, check out Deathstars and Gothminster. And, along the same lines as Nightwish and Within Temptation, check out Edenbridge.

I absolutely love metal music...always have and always will.

[Dusty Chalk]

Hey, all right, another Crematory fan -- completely under-rated band, IMHO. I love them.

Oh, and I should mention I've been revisiting the "too much caffeine" band, Unexpect, and completely enjoying them. There's something about having that much variety on a per-second basis that makes them absolutely optimal for car listening. I never find myself reaching for the skip.

So I played some God Forbid, Naglfar, and The Crown for a friend of mine, and he said, oh, they're alright, but you really ought to check out Gojira. OMG, these guys are like all of that blaster-beat double-bass-pedal stuff except really good. I could understand most everything the guy was singing, despite it being towards the cookie monster end of the spectrum. Other times, he reminded me of Jaz Coleman (Killing Joke) -- one of the best metal vocalists. Evar.

[ecclesand]

I like Naglfar's Pariah album. Good, heavy, dark metal. I need to check if they have anything newer out.

I'll also have to check out The Crown and Gojira.

If you're into Tristania, give a listen to Thy Sins of Thy Beloved. A bit darker than Tristania and Sirenia. I do have to say that Tristania is probably my favorite goth metal band...especially their early stuff when Morten Veland was still with them. Sirenia's new album is out...will have to pick that one up for sure.

Beseech and Eternal Oath are also some good metal bands. IMHO, every album is good.

Jeebus...I'm 43 years old and discussing metal on an internet forum.

[Dusty Chalk]

Pfff -- I'm 46 dude.

Actually, if you discuss metal on a metal forum, your biological clock actually starts working reverse, if it doesn't kill you.

[ecclesand]

Pfff -- I'm 46 dude.

Actually, if you discuss metal on a metal forum, your biological clock actually starts working reverse, if it doesn't kill you.

Excellent!

I just picked up an album from a female fronted band called Diluvium titled Aurora. Very good vocals...kind of a groovy type of metal. At times she sounds like Alicia Keyes.

[Dusty Chalk]

Damn, that sounds intriguing...

[atothex]

Bump.

This thread needs moar love.

I've been listening to this Greek band call Rotting Christ lately. They're supposed to be black or blackened death, but it sounds just like regular melodeath to me... I like.

[Dusty Chalk]

Been really getting into Dir en Grey lately.

Bump.

This thread needs moar love.

Shitchyeah -- thanks for the bump. I forgot this thread was even here. Geezin' sucks.

(makes a mental note to breathe)

[atothex]

I propose we simply post in here for anything kinda metal-related, instead of the "what are you listening to" thread.

Anyways, I'm digging Lamb of God's Sacrament album, too. They got a cool sound; it's not like any other metalcore band that I can think of...

[catscratch]

Perennial metal favorites regardless of genre:

Nile - Black Seeds of Vengeance, In Their Darkened Shrines

Dissection - Storm of the Light's Bane

Alchemist - Organasm. Damn you Alchemist for overcompressing Trypsis. DAMN YOU TO HELL!!!

Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse

Arcturus - The Sham Mirrors, Slideshow Symphonies

Finntrol - Jaktens Tid

Cynic - Focus

Watchtower - Control and Resistance

Cryptopsy - None So Vile

Nevermore - Dreaming Neon Black, Dead Heart in a Dead World

Bruce Dickinson - The Chemical Wedding, Accident of Birth

Outworld - Outworld

Falconer - Falconer

Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine, Terria, Ziltoid the Omniscient

Strapping Young Lad - City

Pretty eclectic metal tastes and of couse I'm leaving out all the old-school Megadeth and Iron Maiden I usually can't get enough of. Though to be perfectly honest, I haven't fired up any metal in about a year, just not in a metal mood.

[atothex]

Have you heard the last Cynic album? It's pretty meh to me, but a lot of people love it. Of course, a lot of people also love the last Opeth album... which I think is garbage. Oh well.

[faust3d]

Symbyosis - On the Wings of Phoenix (2005) - interesting self-releases double CD french death / techno metal with fantasy storyline and a lot cool album art inside a massive booklet.

Voivod - Nothingface (1989)

I am not sure if any of you guys are Voivod fans, but Nothingface is an awesome album.

[Dusty Chalk]

I Voivod -- all phases of them. The early rough phase, the middle more proggy phase, and the more recent back-to-old-school-rough phase.

Nothingface was the pinnacle of what me and a friend started calling "alterna-metal". Love that album.

Catscratch -- I own and love about half that list, I'm going to have to at least hear the other half.

[Fungi]

How could I forget, Portal - Outre is very dark and brutal.

[catscratch]

Haven't heard Cynic's latest. I haven't gotten any new metal in about 2 years. Just not in a metal phase, though I may get back into it.

A few more regulars I forgot:

Meshuggah - Destroy Erase Improve, Chaosphere

Fear Factory - Demanufacture

Isis - Oceanic

Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness (one of the very few pretentious prog-metal albums that I like)

Dream Theater - Awake, Images & Words.

Yes, I liked DT and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But they sucked since Kevin Moore left and I stopped caring after Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence. What a horrible album, bloated, pretentious, and thoroughly devoid of songwriting talent or emotion. They need to kick out Jordan Rudess and find a real songwriter to actually stand a chance at making good music again. But at least the Liquid Tension Experiment disks were pretty good at times.

I never cared for Opeth that much though I did like some stuff from Morningrise and Still Life. Opeth I think are too unfocused and while they have melodic talent they have terrible song structures. I mean, look at most tracks from Still Life - play good catchy riff 4 times, modify slightly, play 4 more times, switch to acoustic segue with a melody repeated 4 times and some mellow vocals, then play first riff 4 more times, the repeat... boring and predictable and a waste of good melody. Dissection's Storm of the Light's Bane is the album that Opeth wish they could write, but they never will (IMO).

Also not a fan of Agalloch even though everyone used to rave about them. "Grey Metal" is right - grey and dull.

Melechesh has some amazing tracks, but is also very uneven. I can't call any single Melechesh album my favorite but a few tracks I do really like. Proscriptor's drumming is amazing and the vocalist sounds like a tortured imp, which is a plus.

Naglfar I thought was a pretty solid Dissection rip-off. This isn't really a bad thing but they will always be measured against Storm of the Light's Bane (as well as The Somberlain though I like that disk less), and they will never measure up. They need to do something different, and they do have the talent, but maybe not the motivation.

I also think that you cannot make truly evil and tortured music unless you are evil and tortured yourself. When Ihsahn was evil he was making fantastic, bone-chilling evil music. When he became a star he tried to fake it but it wasn't the same. This is why Burzum will continually make music that sends chills down my spine - he is an evil, twisted, anti-semitic murderous monstrosity and it shows in his music. But when you take some posers - which a lot of successful metal artists become - and ask them to write evil music, you usually get a caricature of the genre that is laughable at best.

There are lots more albums that I liked but I don't remember now.