Ilwhyan: What would you say that Darkthrone did on TH, title track aside, that is imitated less frequently?

Realize a musical vision coherently?

I want someone to prove me wrong but it seems like the 90s/early 00s finnish power metal sound is dead right now.

I'm going to be on a comp with a band called Uruk-Hai... I hope its the same artist.

I'm amazed that I forgot Thorns, as a) he/they rule, and b) the Thorns v Emperor thing was the very first set of mp3s I ever, er, obtained online, back in the Napster days, so there's obviously a tremendous amount of nostalgia there -- not to mention that the music is amazing, too. So yeah, Thorns, which in turn reminds me of Rebel Extravaganza, and how Satyricon was yet another band that tried the "electro-modern" thing then fled from it. But as godisonsafari said, other bands have taken up that gauntlet in probably more interesting ways.


Yes, them, but due to your enthusiasm I've dug that CD out of a drawer and will give it another shot, why not.


True, I definitely didn't mean that qualitatively. I should've just said "norsecore" (but I didn't because I hate that term) -- stuff like Craft, Urgehal, Graven, the "help I've fallen in 1996 and can't get up" bands. My CD collection has an inordinate amount of black and white booklet covers.



: They certainly did by releasing their music.

: HOOOOOOOHOHOHOOOO

(no I like Abruptum)

Well, if you listen to the album as a whole and consider what characteristics most of the songs have in common, you'll notice that the entire album is wrapped in a certain rather unique atmosphere. Even bands who rip off their riffs from TH and the melodic songs from Panzerfaust never really sound the same.

Came here to say exactly the same thing. The first album was great too, more symphonic bm and less experimental, but amazing all the same. Hell, even their demos were way above average stuff.

I had never heard of torture doom until about a month ago when I read it here on MA. Don't know if it is/was really a prevalent niche/genre or not...

Not sure if that was directed at me, but I own every ROME release already. I was enquiring as to the term Samekh was using (which is not in common parlance) is related to the more commonly heard Martial Industrial (ie Arditi, Toridh, early Der Blutharsch etc). I'm suspecting that it isnt.

There were like 40 bands doing it, ao I'm willing to call it a thing.

Yes : about Dungeon Synth, it is true that even if it is a niche sound, it still exists here in there.
Many people dont get it seriously because of the cheap synths (which is exactly, besides other things, what makes other people like it) but those who like it are really involved.
Even if Dungeon Synth will never be a huge thing (and this is a part of what makes it unique) I guess that a lot more people could appreciated it if they knew better about it.
It is a shame that this genre doesnt even has his own Wikipedia article for instance and is always related to Dark Ambient. Even if I like Dark Ambient and if, sometimes, it has things in common with Dungeon Synth, I think it is two genres totally different.

Anyway, this is not a big deal : in the end, this is just about music, whatever you name it...

Satyricon are more like pop black metal, not black'n'roll. As for me, this is black'n'rollish, and it is quite recent: http://youtu.be/pMMWNjnTJRs

While not a metal subgenre, some death metal acts dabbled in gabber (hardcore techno). Does that even exist anymore?

I think techno itself pretty much went with it in the early to mid 2000s but gabber was quite cool, The Berzerker's S/T is awesome.

I don't think there are many bands who create that homogeneous early-eighties "extreme metal" sound any more. Most of it has been retrospectively revised or garden-pathed into later genres like death metal, black metal, and the like, and it's difficult for bands to really reproduce it. I'd imagine the first-wave of black metal wasn't called that at the time, and I think that retrospective classification limits what can be done.

Maybe you can't achieve a true "proto-xyz" sound any more when "xyz" becomes a fully formed, mature thing.

That, and I'd expect that the definition of "extreme" is sufficiently solid now for it to be more difficult to explore new paths musically - I'm not sure they can discover any "new forms" of "heavy" or "intense" now, and I think a few ways got left behind somewhere in the early eighties that might be gone for good.

Scatterbrain were an amazing band thta combined tchnical thrash/ prog / cross-over / neo-classcial etc with a much needed sense of humour and were very far from funk or thrahs funk. a few songs with a slap bass do not equla funk.

also they evolved outta the amazing Ludichrist, another very underated band that played a more cross-over heavey version of the same sound.

one thing is correct : that sound is dead

i think the classic Queensryche / Crimson Glory sound is pretty much dead as a doornail.

i really miss the groove-thrash sound like on chaos ad, earlier biohazard, or the first machine head album. it stopped existing sometime in the late 90s, and although max cavalera has revisited the genre to an extent on the last few soulfly albums, but no one's been doing making albums exactly in the same vein. i kinda liked the genre and have nostalgic thoughts about it. i'd happily hear it again.

another genre is that kinda "ridiculous" metal as played by bands like ugly kid joe, faith no more's first 2 with patton, some primus, etc. that really was a product of the early 90s and even though it'd just suck if bands started doing it today with super-digital production and i'd hate the jokiness of it all in my late 20s (as opposed to beign fucking 10 or whatever), but again, i have a bit of nostalgia for that "boardshorts + joke metal" thing.

^ Alternative metal and/or alternative/progressive metal? That scene kind of had close ties with funk metal and holy shit that was the worst. Remember that KoRn guys used to play in funk metal band! I can certainly hear their background on early KoRn albums. Another very short-lived niche sound was that industrial/thrash thing. If you mention industrial metal then people will think of Ministry and Godflesh but most don't remember or know about Ktulu, Skrew, Malhavoc etc. for better or worse.

English-based folk metal was pretty much just Skyclad. There are a lot of Irish-based and Scottish-based folk metal bands, but the only English-based one that I've been able to find was the original folk metal band.

There are more english-based folk metal bands.

If you like the sound, then you should listen to Forefather and Ildra. But yeah, I don't think there are enough bands to call it a thing or niche sound, or maybe I'm also unaware of a good number of them.

I think Dragonforce single-handedly killed off the style of ultra-catchy and super-melodic power metal with amazing sing-along choruses. Nobody makes that kind of music anymore.

Okay, maybe a few unknown bands here and there, (like this one ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nR9GlEM0WIA), but few others.

Really? Isn't DragonForce making that kind of stuff anymore? They're active and their latest album came in 2012.

i think that's got less to do with dragonforce and more to do with all the major power metal bands concurrently moving away from power metal to some kind of modern AOR.

True. DF is still doing it, but not nearly as well as they did on their first two albums. It seems like every other PM band has moved away from the style, tried to add some edge, incorporated progressive elements, or just plain slowed down and got boring.

At least Blind Guardian came back in a BIG way... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VfXoQCCizA

I haven't seen anything like the late '80s wave of American power-prog metal (Crimson Glory, Fates Warning, Majesty/Dominici-era Dream Theater, etc.). All of those had a completely different feel from most modern progressive bands and a much greater emphasis on smoothly flowing compositions and great riffs (even John Petrucci, who now wouldn't know a good riff if it kicked him in the nuts, wrote mostly good to great riffs for When Dream and Day Unite). Nowadays, most bands calling themselves progressive tend to cling to the later (post-Kevin Moore) Dream Theater style, tech-death, groove metal, or really stupid shit like djent. It's a shame, really.

But then, considering how much more difficult it is to write a good riff in a weird time signature compared to 4/4, and how much easier it is to write a chug in any time signature, it's no surprise that people take the path of least resistance. Even bands that normally have a riff-focused approach to guitars often lapse into groove patterns when deviating from 4/4 or 6/8 these days.

And of course, ten-minute songs. Everyone knows the essence of modern prog is ten-minute songs. A proper ten-minute song is like a five-minute song, but with five minutes of noodling in the middle where the bridge would normally go. Don't actually write ten minutes of material for your ten-minute song, that way lies bad things, like "Exodus", "Roads to Madness", and "Metropolis Pt. 1".