\m/(~_~)\m/ Bring the Metal! \m/(~_~)\m/

garion - Lars isn't the best, and I'm not too into Kirk either, but we're talking vocals here.

Running Man - Those guys are metal gods, but I prefer Hetfield. It helps that those guys are before my time, and I'm a big thrash fan.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Hetfield is the greatest metal vocalist of all time.

*spit take*

I've been a fan of metal since the early 80s, and while I would consider Hetfield one of the best metal rhythm guitarists of all time, I wouldn't place his vocals in even the top 10 of all time.

As the saying goes, there's no accounting for taste, so I'll just back away from this thread and pretend I never read that sentence I quoted.

I can't beat most of the suggestions so far, but if you want to clear out your house at the end of a party:

New (leaked) Mastodon:

MeatMan wrote:

I've been a fan of metal since the early 80s, and while I would consider Hetfield one of the best metal rhythm guitarists of all time, I wouldn't place his vocals in even the top 10 of all time.

I kind of agree with this. Hetfield is awesome. He is a fantastic rhythm player and has written some of my favorite riffs of all time. But I wouldn't consider him to be much of a singer, and I'd be surprised if Hetfield himself would disagree.

garion333 wrote:

New (leaked) Mastodon

Nice!

Podunk wrote:
MeatMan wrote:

I've been a fan of metal since the early 80s, and while I would consider Hetfield one of the best metal rhythm guitarists of all time, I wouldn't place his vocals in even the top 10 of all time.

I kind of agree with this. Hetfield is awesome. He is a fantastic rhythm player and has written some of my favorite riffs of all time. But I wouldn't consider him to be much of a singer, and I'd be surprised if Hetfield himself would disagree.

Call him my favorite, then. Many early metal singers and even his contemporaries were too operatic for my tastes - take Joey from Anthrax, for example. Before I got used to modern death/metalcore/etc. vocals, I felt like many metal singers were too harsh. James is perfectly throaty and bad ass. Fantastic delivery.

I'm not saying he has the greatest range, although I consider it pretty good, and he's not the savant that someone like JMK from Tool is, but his singing perfectly suits the music of the greatest heavy metal band of all time - unlike many other bands, I can't imagine it being any better than it is - and that's got to count for something.

garion333 wrote:

New (leaked) Mastodon:

I'm a bit disappointed Mastodon isn't continuing with what they tried in Crack the Skye. But it must be tough to follow up such a godly album.

Edit: I do like Troy's voice these days, and I think that song sounds like good standard-issue Mastodon.

But speaking of disappointment, why has nobody mentioned Himsa? Here and here.

I can't hear it at work!!!! Dammit! Why are you giving me error code?!?!?!?!

Edit: Muahahaahahaa! Found it elsewhere.

I really dig it. I've found some of their forays into that 70s prog vibe to be on the dreary side, but this sounds really energized to me, like Opeth is moving in a direction that genuinely excites them. The clean vocals sound great, too, the best I've heard from Åkerfeldt. I can't wait to hear more.

Yup. Opeth has gone more prog, and I'm totally okay with that. This sounds much more fresh than the last album.

Dr_Awkward wrote:

http://mapofmetal.com

Awesome site, indeed. I've had it bookmarked since someone showed it to me a few months ago, but haven't visited in quite a while. I shall correct that mistake ... now!

Edit: Well that sucks. None of the songs play anymore. The audio is pulled from Youtube videos, so I guess whatever method the site's creator used no longer works.

Oh well. At least the map is still informative.

I have to throw my vote in for John Bush (Armored Saint/Anthrax) as one of my favorite metal vocalists of all time. He has such a distinct sound and his word inflections are out of this world. I always wonder why Armored Saint never made top-billing status. Their 2nd album, Delirious Nomad is an easy pick for my Top 5 metal albums of all time.

Same with Ronnie James Dio and Dave Mustaine. Heck, even Ozzy too. They all share this ability to have vocals that are unquestionably their own trademark. I've got a lot of respect for artists that sound utterly unique.

Back in the 80's Iron Maiden was my favorite metal act, bar none. But to be honest, going back and listening to Bruce Dickinson's voice is painful to my ears today. It's so shrill and samey-sounding to the countless other leads from that era.

Podunk wrote:

http://www.thegauntlet.com/article/2...

Sounds killer.

Not much of an Opeth guy, but I liked this a lot.

New Mastodon sounds great. Their 3 previous albums are just kick ass.

I hear Cathedral is breaking up, damn. Just when I was getting into them. Check out Oro the Manslayer from the epic cd Garden of Unearthly Delights:

Motorhead isn't metal? I know they don't sound heavy by today's standards, but I have to disagree.

And I would LOVE to attend a show featuring Bodom, Anthrax, and Opeth!

Speaking of The Sword, they played half a block from our old house a couple of years ago at a relatively small pub with an upstairs stage. That was before their most recent album.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Motorhead isn't metal?

Alls I know is, if someone were to make some kind of heavy-metal-based game, Lenny probably wouldn't even be in it.

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:
Fedaykin98 wrote:

Motorhead isn't metal?

Alls I know is, if someone were to make some kind of heavy-metal-based game, Lenny probably wouldn't even be in it.

Who would win in a fight, Lemmy or God?

TRICK QUESTION, Lemmy IS God!

/Airheads

Actually they even said it themselves, that they were rock and roll, rather than metal.

I always say that an artist is the worst judge of what genre they are in.* Wikipedia has them as speed metal / thrash metal pioneers.

*see Amon Amarth, possibly AC/DC, etc.

Motorhead are undoubtedly an old school thrash band. But then the reason this thread exists is because it seemed to me that most modern 'metal' bands were cookie monster bands and there was little interesting variety.

The current metal bands I like the most are like Dillinger Escape Plan and Cancer Bats who are usually labelled punk because they straddle the thrash/hardcore line.

For Father's day, I got tickets to the Saturday of Heavy TO this past weekend.

I saw:

Children of Bodom
Anthrax
Motorhead
Megadeth
and a few others.
The Sword got held up at the border.. f*ck! They are one of my favorite bands, and the one I was most looking forward to.

My order of favorites

1. Megadeth - My god Mustaine can shred. Can't believe he gives too f*cks about what happened with Metallica, they were the headliners and totally killed it. There is something awesome about good old fashion Thrash. Duelling insane guitar solos on every song.
2. Children of Bodom - Man these dudes can play, awesome set and he's a great frontman.
3. Anthrax - Thrash metal is alive and well, nice to see Joey Belladona back with the band he's great!
4. Motorhead - I'm glad I finally got to see them, and TOTALLY metal by any means was a neat show. Mikkey Dee is one of the best drummers I've ever seen. You can tell Lemmy is getting old, and no.. we couldn't understand a word he said.

Opeth - zzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Sorry fans, but I don't get it. Total snoozefest, and Bodom deserved their set length for sure.

ON a sidenote, here's what I'm digging lately.

And, BONUS.

Full length documentary on Stoner/Doom metal.

Edited for truth

Hey, no reason you can't stand by your opinions. :p

Subbing this thread, filthily skimmering it.

If I have anything to contribute, I'd say Machine Head is on a pretty great f*cking roll lately. Through the Ashes is good (Imperium has one of the most awesome machine gun drums openings ever), The Blackening is great (Halo = shivers of awesome all over my arms) and I have a feeling Into the Locust will rip the Earth asunder.

Check their first song of the upcoming album, Locust.

El-Producto wrote:

Edited for truth ;)

I actually lol'ed at your edit prior to reading this post, since my browser took me straight there.

Machine Head is one of the many bands that are playing at Mayhem Festival that I may or may not check out. I'm going for Trivium most of all, and then In Flames and Unearth. Unfortunately, according to setlist.fm, I should expect In Flames to play one song from back when they were awesome. I would kill for a set heavy on The Jester Race/Whoracle/Colony.

Speaking of setlist.fm, I like to use it to prepare myself to see bands whose catalogs I'm not utterly familiar with. I make a playlist of the songs they have been playing live lately. With most bands, there is depressingly little variation from day to day.

Anyway, I've been listening to my Trivium playlist (I only recently got Ascendancy), and just tonight finished the one for Unearth. I am seriously digging the two released tracks from the new Trivium album. Seems like a different sound once again, but not necessarily a departure. The album would have to be a masterpiece to replace Shogun as my favorite, though.

oMonarca wrote:

Check their first song of the upcoming album, Locust.

Sounds good! I have Machine Head's first two and last two albums. I'll likely be getting Unto the Locust as well.

MeatMan wrote:
oMonarca wrote:

Check their first song of the upcoming album, Locust.

Sounds good! I have Machine Head's first two and last two albums. I'll likely be getting Unto the Locust as well.

Muuuuuuuch better than the stuff they did for, oh, a decade after their first album. Looks like I need to go check out their last two albums as I wrote MH off long ago. Loooooong ago.