I have personally measured the unattributed claims that the first album by Astra lines up with events as they occur in the geriatric sci-fi movie Cocoon. I can report that the most pleasingly confluence between the music and the events taking place on-screen happens during the fifteen minute title track, The Weirding, during the first slowly unfolding chorus, that comes around with a similar frequency to Halley's Comet. The line: “take my place in the human race” segues up almost perfectly with a woman named Kitty taking off her human disguise to reveal her true nature as a creature of pure energy and light. On the second, and currently final, album by the band – The Black Chord – there is a song titled Cocoon. It is entirely possible that the purpose of Astra's existence was as a tribute to the film. Musically they take their cue from the slower and introspective moments in the Black Sabbath canon. Imagine Planet Caravan drawn out into a series of instrumental passages in which electric guitar seasoned with flute and moog synthesiser progressively explore the unfathomable mysteries of the cosmos.
Metal at its most progressive doesn't necessarily have to aspire to the length of an ice age. Take for example Diabolical Masquerade – the one-man side project of Anders Nyström, whose day job is guitarist in the Swedish heavy metal band, Katatonia. Of note is the project's fourth and final album, Death's Design, a playful and inventive record, billed as a soundtrack to a movie (there is no movie). Over the course of 43 minutes, a sequence of 61 intriguingly-titled tracks, divided into 20 movements, explore a variation of styles while providing insight into what Guided By Voices would have sounded like, if they had chosen to head in a metal direction. Despite the absence of an accompanying film, there are strong soundtrack elements – the deep rumbles of bass piano spliced with jagged shards of synthesised violins on 'Don't Listen To What It Says', or 'A Hurricane Of Rotten Air' – 19 seconds of guitar squall and electronic squelch, interrupted briefly by a back of the throat gurgle. Some of the relatively longer tracks rise to the level of short songs. The broken mechanism in reverse of Spinning Back the Clock graduates to a few lines of anthemic folk metal before it dies away and returns reformed in the guise of guttural black metal.
When I am feeling down, I will sometimes listen to a clip from the Opie and Anthony show where the former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, calls in and the comedian, Louis CK, spends ten minutes repeatedly asking him whether he is a lizard person; a question that Rumsfeld declines to answer. Snakes For The Divine by High On Fire explores very similar territory through the energetic medium of heavy, uptempo powerchords, Des Kensel's avalanche drum fills, and a chorus let out on a long leash. Matt Pike, who doubles as the driving force behind the band Sleep (authors of the hour-long stoner rock classic Dopesmoker) has a vocal style that is strongly reminiscent of Lemmy from Motorhead – an influence to whom the band pay posthumous tribute on their album Electric Messiah. Whatever tempo they play at, there is always a sense of relentless onslaught at the heart of High On Fire, perhaps most notably on King Of Days which throws down the gauntlet with the none more metal opening couplet “a psychopath has found a sight and a way to be the king of days” and concludes with the sound of war drums.
The creative spirit of the late AxCx frontman, Seth Putnam, could not be quietened by a coma, induced, in part, by his consumption of a two-month supply of Ambien, nor could it be contained within the body of work of a single band. To wit, 'Howard is Bald' – an album/EP released under the AxCx moniker, but very much a solo effort, in which the De Vinci of grindcore performs a suite of songs focusing entirely on the baldness of Earache Records employee, Howard Wulkan, over a tape of disco classics that he certainly had no right to use. It is on the side project, Impaled Northern Moonforest, billed as a critique of acoustic black metal, that we see Putnam at his most incarnate within the genre. A release schedule governed by the whims of an all-powerful necro-wizard has left us with barely ten minutes worth of songs – an unholy baker's dozen – but what songs they are. Among them, Grim And Frostbitten Moongoats Of The North; Lustfully Worshiping The Inverted Moongoat While Skiing Down The Inverted Necromountain Of Necrodeathmortem; and Grim and Frostbitten Gay Bar. What does it sound like? Putnam flawlessly mimicking the icy wind of the necrotrundra while a hillybilly (possibly also Putnam) who has taken all the trucker speed he could lay his hands on manically strums an out of tune banjo over a Scandinavian goblin who rants blasphemies in Biblical tongues. Elsewhere, there is some reflective church organ, the notes warping slightly around the edges, then the infernal banjo again, this time accompanied by somebody violently beating their head against a tambourine. When they made Putnam they used the mold as a chamberpot, then they broke it.
The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton, as documented in the lo-fi Mountain Goats song of the same name, were sadly put to an end before their time: A duo formed of kindred spirits, Jeff and Cyrus, who were yet to decide on a name, but who were convinced that fortune and fame loomed large in their futures. In the song, their ambitions are brought to a premature end when Cyrus is sent to a school where he is told he will be never be famous, while his friend Jeff develops a plot that will allow the pair to get even with their tormentors.
“When you punish a person for dreaming his dream, don't expect him to thank or forgive you,” counsels John Darnielle, before a consolatory closing chorus of “Hail Satan!”
I appreciated this list! Whenever I think of heavy metal, my mind goes to Black Sabbath, AC/DC and all the hair metal bands, and those are just not in my lane. But, I realized there are quite a few bands in the wider genre that I love!! So, I can participate! Hahaha!
My favorite brewery is a metal music themed brewery, but a lot of the alternative crowd hangs there - they do goth nights, yacht rock on some Sundays in the summer, and will be doing some Soul Sundays this winter. Typically, Sundays there are known as Sabbath Bloody Sunday, and they play Black Sabbath all day. Not a fan of the music, but my friend group meets there every Sunday for the Bloody Marys and we call it Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday (U2 reference). I tune out the Black Sabbath unless whoever is tending bar breaks out the Black Sabbath covers playlist lol.
Anyway, my five would be several on your lists! Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Tool, System of a Down, and Nitzer Ebb. Huge fan of all of these!
What... Wait a second here, only five?
I guess the real question here is, do I stay mainstream, go to Fringe genres or just throw stuff against the wall and see what sticks?
1. Iron Maiden
2. Queensryche
3. Dream Theater
4. Saxon
5. Diamond Head or Motorhead
I have personally measured the unattributed claims that the first album by Astra lines up with events as they occur in the geriatric sci-fi movie Cocoon. I can report that the most pleasingly confluence between the music and the events taking place on-screen happens during the fifteen minute title track, The Weirding, during the first slowly unfolding chorus, that comes around with a similar frequency to Halley's Comet. The line: “take my place in the human race” segues up almost perfectly with a woman named Kitty taking off her human disguise to reveal her true nature as a creature of pure energy and light. On the second, and currently final, album by the band – The Black Chord – there is a song titled Cocoon. It is entirely possible that the purpose of Astra's existence was as a tribute to the film. Musically they take their cue from the slower and introspective moments in the Black Sabbath canon. Imagine Planet Caravan drawn out into a series of instrumental passages in which electric guitar seasoned with flute and moog synthesiser progressively explore the unfathomable mysteries of the cosmos.
Metal at its most progressive doesn't necessarily have to aspire to the length of an ice age. Take for example Diabolical Masquerade – the one-man side project of Anders Nyström, whose day job is guitarist in the Swedish heavy metal band, Katatonia. Of note is the project's fourth and final album, Death's Design, a playful and inventive record, billed as a soundtrack to a movie (there is no movie). Over the course of 43 minutes, a sequence of 61 intriguingly-titled tracks, divided into 20 movements, explore a variation of styles while providing insight into what Guided By Voices would have sounded like, if they had chosen to head in a metal direction. Despite the absence of an accompanying film, there are strong soundtrack elements – the deep rumbles of bass piano spliced with jagged shards of synthesised violins on 'Don't Listen To What It Says', or 'A Hurricane Of Rotten Air' – 19 seconds of guitar squall and electronic squelch, interrupted briefly by a back of the throat gurgle. Some of the relatively longer tracks rise to the level of short songs. The broken mechanism in reverse of Spinning Back the Clock graduates to a few lines of anthemic folk metal before it dies away and returns reformed in the guise of guttural black metal.
When I am feeling down, I will sometimes listen to a clip from the Opie and Anthony show where the former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, calls in and the comedian, Louis CK, spends ten minutes repeatedly asking him whether he is a lizard person; a question that Rumsfeld declines to answer. Snakes For The Divine by High On Fire explores very similar territory through the energetic medium of heavy, uptempo powerchords, Des Kensel's avalanche drum fills, and a chorus let out on a long leash. Matt Pike, who doubles as the driving force behind the band Sleep (authors of the hour-long stoner rock classic Dopesmoker) has a vocal style that is strongly reminiscent of Lemmy from Motorhead – an influence to whom the band pay posthumous tribute on their album Electric Messiah. Whatever tempo they play at, there is always a sense of relentless onslaught at the heart of High On Fire, perhaps most notably on King Of Days which throws down the gauntlet with the none more metal opening couplet “a psychopath has found a sight and a way to be the king of days” and concludes with the sound of war drums.
The creative spirit of the late AxCx frontman, Seth Putnam, could not be quietened by a coma, induced, in part, by his consumption of a two-month supply of Ambien, nor could it be contained within the body of work of a single band. To wit, 'Howard is Bald' – an album/EP released under the AxCx moniker, but very much a solo effort, in which the De Vinci of grindcore performs a suite of songs focusing entirely on the baldness of Earache Records employee, Howard Wulkan, over a tape of disco classics that he certainly had no right to use. It is on the side project, Impaled Northern Moonforest, billed as a critique of acoustic black metal, that we see Putnam at his most incarnate within the genre. A release schedule governed by the whims of an all-powerful necro-wizard has left us with barely ten minutes worth of songs – an unholy baker's dozen – but what songs they are. Among them, Grim And Frostbitten Moongoats Of The North; Lustfully Worshiping The Inverted Moongoat While Skiing Down The Inverted Necromountain Of Necrodeathmortem; and Grim and Frostbitten Gay Bar. What does it sound like? Putnam flawlessly mimicking the icy wind of the necrotrundra while a hillybilly (possibly also Putnam) who has taken all the trucker speed he could lay his hands on manically strums an out of tune banjo over a Scandinavian goblin who rants blasphemies in Biblical tongues. Elsewhere, there is some reflective church organ, the notes warping slightly around the edges, then the infernal banjo again, this time accompanied by somebody violently beating their head against a tambourine. When they made Putnam they used the mold as a chamberpot, then they broke it.
The Best Ever Death Metal Band In Denton, as documented in the lo-fi Mountain Goats song of the same name, were sadly put to an end before their time: A duo formed of kindred spirits, Jeff and Cyrus, who were yet to decide on a name, but who were convinced that fortune and fame loomed large in their futures. In the song, their ambitions are brought to a premature end when Cyrus is sent to a school where he is told he will be never be famous, while his friend Jeff develops a plot that will allow the pair to get even with their tormentors.
“When you punish a person for dreaming his dream, don't expect him to thank or forgive you,” counsels John Darnielle, before a consolatory closing chorus of “Hail Satan!”
I appreciated this list! Whenever I think of heavy metal, my mind goes to Black Sabbath, AC/DC and all the hair metal bands, and those are just not in my lane. But, I realized there are quite a few bands in the wider genre that I love!! So, I can participate! Hahaha!
My favorite brewery is a metal music themed brewery, but a lot of the alternative crowd hangs there - they do goth nights, yacht rock on some Sundays in the summer, and will be doing some Soul Sundays this winter. Typically, Sundays there are known as Sabbath Bloody Sunday, and they play Black Sabbath all day. Not a fan of the music, but my friend group meets there every Sunday for the Bloody Marys and we call it Sunday Bloody Mary Sunday (U2 reference). I tune out the Black Sabbath unless whoever is tending bar breaks out the Black Sabbath covers playlist lol.
Anyway, my five would be several on your lists! Nine Inch Nails, Ministry, Tool, System of a Down, and Nitzer Ebb. Huge fan of all of these!