I'm going to have to disagree about as strongly as possible. The transitions are choppy and awkward, and the melodies are really just a bunch of notes with no underlying progression or logic. This extends to the solos too, which is regrettable and baffling since Nilsson's phrasing is generally really good. Like, I can handle dissonance and odd senses of melody - I really love Unexpect for crying out loud - but Zierler is literally just futzing around with the whole tone scale and doing piano arpeggios around incredibly basic ideas, and it makes Behold the Arctopus sound like fucking Bach in terms of melodic articulation.

No Chorus is basically the worst song I've heard in my life and legit sounds like nu-metal at times (those harsh vocals lmao) and the lyrics are seriously pathetic. It's the epitome of prog musicians having an unwarranted sense of superiority due to their supposed "complexity" when in reality they're less engaging and novel than most J-pop bands.

Oh, while we're on the topic of songwriting cohesion, here's a wish: Michael Keene should stop pretending that he can be Devin Townsend, and start figuring how to write a song that isn't a jumble of twenty unrelated ideas. Same goes for the guys from BTBAM.

This label has a lot of Indian bands you may or may not have heard of. Quite a diverse range and their products are top quality.

Too bad Euronymous died, otherwise we could get the ORIGINAL MAYHEM LINE-UP of Euronymous, Attila, Blackthorn, Varg and Hellhammer back and record another De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas. That's their original line-up, go listen to Chimera if you think you know better!!

Who the fuck is Manheim? Wasn't he in Nocturnus?

For an album, I'd probably wish for the second planned End Amen album (promising John Arch and Doug Keyser in the line-up) to be completed. Could have been the ultimate early prog metal supergroup. For a performer to not die prematurely, Cliff Burton no question, the songwriting on Lightning and Puppets was just so visionary and quality, even if they "sold out" faster I'd imagine he still had many amazing songs left to write.

Another wish I have that may actually come true, is a new metal sub-genre that doesn't involve any core, nu metal, djent, etc. Something as groundbreaking or close to, as death and black metal were to the scene. All the new stuff seems to be a variation on a genre or a mixture of a few genres. I'm not the best musician so it won't be me, but it would be awesome to witness

May not be much, and may never be much, but a small number of artists, myself included, are beginning to slowly descend into some form of "martial metal" - not a mere mixture of metal and martial industrial, but something that looks set to develop its very own aesthetic.

I think the best we got so far is these guys introducing (sadly, programmed) drone/doom guitars:

I would wish for a New Cirith Ungol Record...

Or a New Slayer Album that doesn't suck...

Or that Death Made more Leprosy-Like Records...

"groove metal"

I'm not talking about gimmicky folk metal stuff, I just mean a real underground scene with a nationally identifiable sound. Japanese heavy metal is easy to spot. Finnish black metal has a unique character. Aussie war metal stuff is very idiosyncratic. I'm not talking about incorporating the country's folk music heritage into some hamfisted folk metal, I'm talking about real grimy underground stuff that's readily identifiable as being of that country, reflections of society and culture in that society. I mean, I'm not totally ruling out some folk influences (after all, I do think Sad Legend were pretty amazing), I just want some ugly death metal that's filthy back alleys and soju puke, black metal that haunts the pine-clad rolling mountains and thunderous heavy metal that smashes like a turtle ship through a Japanese blockade.

I wasn't expecting to hear that from you. I thought you weren't fond of Unexpect?

I've always found it to be the least distinctive of the big black metal scenes... especially the more recent stuff.

Power metal would be popular in the U.S., and especially in the Midwest. I gotta fight to find good power metal groups in my region. The only upside is that all the Midwest power metal bands are good friends with each other.

My band plays power metal, so I'd love to see this happen if only for selfish reasons

I'd wish for Alf Svensson to return and start making more of the crazy off-the-wall death metal he was doing with the early At the Gates stuff. Wouldn't necessarily want it to be with At the Gates, though.

Failing that, I'd like to see some young upstart bands channel that same kind of craziness. Bands are doing it now with Demilich, why not The Red in the Sky?

I came here to say bring Chuck Schuldiner back to life, but quickly realised that the music he was making near the end of his career/life is not something I'd be all that interested in hearing more of. Then I remembered that Euronymous was also dead and likely had a couple more classic releases in him, at least. Releases that probably would have shaped and defined much of the black metal scene. From what I've read about Euro, he was a cunt rag of a human being, but damn it he could write good black metal.

So I'd probably use my wish on having Varg not pull the ol' knifey mcknifeface on Euro and see how the scene would have developed.

I wish all metal bands had as many awesome albums as there are singles in Sloth's discography.

Just one OK well that Delain will headline the USA next year that is all really.

Some I agree on:

The Mercyful Fate reunion along with a new release with that full-on occult vibe of their 80's albums would be a gas.

Babymetal not existing. Years before, when I mentioned to metalheads that I liked Japanese metal, most of the time they'd think Sigh, Boris and other groups with an international appeal; I had no problems with that. Now...well it's obviously a different story.

Korea needs metal scene to counterbalance the monopoly of Kpop. Shit, doing some research thanks to the recent OT thread, there are Kpoppers in a scene they don't belong in. Apink's Namjoo can eat her entire fist yet she's stuck doing cheery fluff. That's a "fistful of metal" right there, plus she's got a potential bark going by the end of that linked clip. E-Young from After School can shred on the guitar as well as play some serious bass, drums and keyboards, but is trapped singing and dancing to crap. Plus I'm sure some of those boy-band members would relish playing metal rather than looking/acting like sissies if any label would even sign a metal band.

My wish would be if Fenriz, N. Culto and a couple of hired guns or even Zephyrous would see the light and send Darkthrone on a world tour with a strong focus on the classic black metal stuff, mostly the trilogy but a few other songs as well. I'm not even a huge fan, but I'd pay to see that without question. Shit, hearing something off Panzerfaust live would be sick, eclipsing the obnoxious production of that album. Probably a better chance of resurrecting Dio, Chuck or whoever, but a wish is a wish.

Fenriz did say they'd play live if Horst Tappert (is he still alive?) played bass and Jaleel White did vocals.

What a waste of a wish, they're getting bigger and bigger and will do one sooner or later.

I'd pay good money to see Darkthrone play a set of the stuff from their 3-4 latest albums. If they do gigs and play stuff from their classic black metal, it would feel dishonest and frankly be a cash grab.

What about Jake White + Fenriz ???

Times have changed! I recently started paying attention to their songwriting and figuring out that it's a lot more coherent and thematic than I had initially assumed. I do have trouble with a couple moments that are sort of arbitrary, like the out-of-nowhere saxophone bit in Megalomaniac Trees (especially since that comes after such a badass riff!) but their moments of brilliance are too unique to overlook. I mean, the intros to Chromatic Chimera and Desert Urbania are just dank, as is the climax of Mechanical Phoenix.

Zierler, on the other hand, tries to be avant-garde with abrupt transitions, but the sections of the songs don't have anything to do with each other and there's no basic idea tying a track together, just a linear series of half-baked ideas. It's a compositional travesty.



Oh I agree with you, I was just wanting to make a semi-on-topic rambling point about how more bands (especially those in burgeoning metal scenes like India, or already-prolific ones like Indonesia) should attempt in-depth incorporations of native folk into metal.

The most obvious wish that comes to mind is that John Arch wasn't fired from Fates Warning. I recall an interview with him from the early '90s where he said that 'No Exit' would have been a lot different had he been in the band still. I love 'No Exit' as it is, and a lot of the post-Arch albums, but it would be cool to have a parallel (heh) universe where Fates continued with Arch and developed that style further.

Come on man, I love 'em too but of all the things you could change in the metal world, and it's this?

A better wish than keeping Brazilian one time legends out of the gutter - I wish all grunge could have channeled in the metal as good as Alice in Chains and Soundgarden. A wave of modern '90s doom bands in the mainstream would have been cool!

Barring the resurrect Chuck/Quorthon/etc:

I wish Funebrarum were able to crank out albums with the same quality as the two they have. They are my favorite death metal band, their albums are both required listens, and the fact that they only have two is just really sad. I've probably listened to each album almost 100 times.

Eh, i know the feeling! Luckily we've got the Arch/Mateos record, i think it's a worthy consolation prize!

I've been mulling this over ever since the thread started, and I guess if I had just one, I'd say that I wish Daniel Heiman would've fronted a much more "normal" sounding power metal band in his prime. I'm throwing that "prime" qualifier in simply because I have no idea what he sounds like nowadays, but it's been 13 years since Lost Horizon did anything and I haven't heard anything in the interim (so for all I know my wish already came true, to be fair), but he sounds fucking phenomenal on A Flame to the Ground Beneath. The problem is that he is the clear highlight, and he's one of the most talented vocalists I've heard in all of music, let alone metal, but Lost Horizon just bores the shit out of me. I feel like that's because any band that takes a rhythmic focus but doesn't fall into extreme metal (like most death metal is completely fine, but djent and the aforementioned chugprog are what I'm talking about here) just completely falls flat. The only part of Lost Horizon that soars or sounds majestic or even does anything remotely interesting to me is whatever Heiman is doing at any given moment, whereas the guitars are like "we need to keep it in the background, but not actually write any interesting riffs". All of the most musically exciting parts are when they just fall into cliches of double bass and big melodies. Heiman is/was way too talented to front such a dull band, and some alternate universe where he was in a band that actually got the blood pumping would absolutely be a universe I in which I want to live.

Their more ethereal style isn't for everyone, but that riff 2:01 into Think Not Forever is pretty much the best shit ever.

"A Flame..." was always a mood/atmosphere album for me. I like both of their albums evenly.

I do find it amusing how prog is now "chug prog" and "dad prog" (and I find myself using both terms as well, much to my dismay )

I never heard "chugprog" until this thread but it perfectly describes the whole Pagan's Mind/Morgana Lefay style that I never cared for. In the corners of the internet I frequented, bands like that were crazy popular (in like 08-10) and I just never, ever got it.

Feel free to shoot me if I ever use asinine terms like "chug prog" or "dad prog"...

I like Lost Horizon's style. It was always more dense and interesting, with some cool ideas here and there. He tried a more straightforward style with his band Heed, which was also keeping the riffs mostly in the background as a rhythmic thing though. I wouldn't mind to see him doing a more traditional band, so long as it wasn't like Serious Black, Masterplan, etc where there was just no replay value to it.

I like "proge" personally (used to refer to stuff like Headspace, Ayreon, Threshold, the stuff people also call "melodic metal", you know) because it's just fun to say.

If dadprog means stuff like Watchtower, Confessor, Psychotic Waltz, etc... well, that's probably the best metal genre.

And yeah, A Flame's songwriting approach is definitely unique. It's drifty, pretty sparse at times, and has lots of weird time changes that feel sort of stream-of-consciousness or, more accurately put, narrative. Miles away from the more conventional style of Awakening the World. Though The Kingdom of My Will and Heart of Storm do have some atmospheric breaks that hint at the direction they'd take.

"proge"? Much wow, so shred.

Even if I love Dream Theater, I can't barely stand any of those chug prog bands, Pagan's Mind are super generic and lifeless stuff and I don't get rexxxxx's love for them. Ayreon or Threshold are in the prog metal/rock, this would be dad prog aka something that my dad who likes Pink Floyd and Yes could dig. I'm pretty sure he couldn't stand Watchtower haha.

This is a very weird admission from me: I value mood/atmosphere over riffs, yet I'm primary a power/prog fan. Probably why I like "A Flame..." so much. I can also tolerate some chugtastic albums if there's still a mood, vision, soundscape, etc invoked in me (hey, Empyrios' 2nd album I dig the fuck out of and in theory I should haaaate that one).

I actually like the term melodic metal and wish it would come back. In the 90s, Conception was referred to that. I prefer that more than calling them prog metal... I don't like calling them power metal because they don't really *feel* like other power metal bands during that era. I guess stuff like Royal Hunt would fall in there too. *wishes for better metal taxidermy*

Oh, Heiman sung for the Swedish band Destiny, but I don't think anything was recorded. That would've been interesting if he stayed on.

Today I introduced my dad to Paul Chain. Paul Chain is now dadprog.

We all have weird taste inconsistencies. Like, I love Suspyre, especially the s/t where they literally go full djent at times. And Voyager and Keldian are great despite being really AOR-y (normally not something I dig). Maybe it's the synth prominence (aka the Blood Stain Child Exemption).

You do know it says what you would wish right?

Well yeah, they would have to have their hearts in it, as currently that isn't the case. I wouldn't mind them doing more recent stuff, but if the focus was mainly on that then I can imagine the tour being cut short due to constant crowd yelling for the early 90's stuff. If they had played festivals or tours for the old stuff in the past, then I could see favoring the newer material wouldn't be as much of an issue, but since they never actually did a full tour for the bm era, it would be a cash grab, but one with some merit I think.

I agree with the person who said power metal being popular in the U.S. Though I will add the west coast, sucks when most metal heads I meet don't know most of the bands I listen to.

A second wish though I know no one said this one is though is that I would wish for the Power/Prog band Disforia to get off being on hold and record a new album and do a tour and for them to get a big following in the metal scene, their 2014 album is the best album I have heard this decade, the world needs more of them.

Only one wish is difficult, and after some thought, I really wish Xysma would record a new album.

I'd wish for Dave Mustaine to get brain surgery. Seriously, there's something wrong with this man.

Brain surgery won't fix Dave. Also, he made his best music when he was a pissed off heroin user. If anything, he should get back on the junk.