Any fans of bands like Midnight? I'm looking for bands which essentially play heavy/speed metal with blackened influences who incorporate really bluesy riffs and solos.

I hope you heard Speedwolf. There's not black influences, but except that it's what you're looking for. There's a lot of venom influenced stuff these days, next time you're in the chat, I'll give you something, eh.

'Joel Grind - The yellow goat sessions'. Early Bathory worship done very well. Stream the album for free at his bandcamp: http://joelgrind.bandcamp.com/

Yup, Tony. Speedwolf is a good recommendation. Thanks. I'll catch up with you later for more artists eh.

Apex, those Yellow Goat songs are quite kickass. Thanks.

Could give Chapel - Satan's Rock 'n' Roll a try. My friend who worships this stuff digs them. Black/speed metal according to the archives with Speedwolf, Venom and Midnight as the top three related artists, at that!

Been listening to Headhunter's PARASITE OF SOCIETY! And holy bleeding cow if it isn't the most awesome marriage of thrash and power metal.
Highly recommended. That dude from Destruction is on vocals too!

Ah thanks. I was listening to their bandcamp a while ago and yup, they almost fit what I'm looking for. The vocals are more menacing almost akin to those Aussie blackened-thrash metal bands. That's cool

I'm a bit late to the party, but I'm obliged to say that the new Attacker is great. I hadn't listened to this band before, but I'll definitely have to look into their past works considering how good Giants of Canaan is. One thing though; their current singer's tone I find to be rather irksome. He sounds shrill, though not in a good way. The guy is good in every other aspect; he's powerful, he has a good range, and his lines are catchy, but his tone kills me. I'll probably get used to it, but right now it's giving me a bit of a headache.

Anyone heard the new Sacred Steel? It's pretty much what modern Helstar should sound like, but somehow doesn't. Killer riffing, a heavy as fuck guitar tone and weird, warbly vocals just like 80s Helstar had. Awesome shit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ2vQ9MEz_E

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_slLQJt1WM

Some great live footage of Savatage in 1993 here. Zak Stevens was a good replacement for Jon who, as opposite to him isn't just a screamer but can also sing clean lines with some actual convince. Also I've been checking Edge of Thorns out recently and I can't help but think what it could have been had they fixed the flaws on that one. The ballads sound lame to my ears and some songs just lack direction. The titled track and ''Damien'' are pretty cool though. Zak Stevens and Chris Oliva definitely safe the album from falling into utter horse shit at times - but the songwriting itself is really plain average at best.

This is..... Surprisingly decent, considering it comes from one of the most generic bands ever. Fuck, even Mutz sounds good, and this is the same man whose vocals tend to make me want to punch a hole in the nearest wall. Still, the riffs are rather weak (save for the ones towards the three minute mark and onwards), and the songwriting is anything but varied. If this is the best the album has to offer, I don't think I'll bother.

It's not their best song. But it is the only one on Youtube, so that's all I could show you.

Mmmmm..... Bah, what the hell. I'll try to give it a listen when I can, just because you're the one recommending it, Emp. If it doesn't live up to expectations, then I'll go after you!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuqSOlv7HcQ - new Holocaust song from a gig I was at, recently.

I agree, Thy Majestie needs more love. I remember randomly grabbing Dawn when it came out and it is truly a good album. A really nice conceptual album with rich vocals. I need to give the new album, more of a listen. I've only picked it up recently, but it is looking to be their strongest effort to date.

Acrobat, I'll check out Holocaust. Thanks.

I'm listening to the Antichrist album ya'll. Some of you would've heard of them. Fuckin' killer thrash.

ShiHuangDi is really, really good. It's a grower if there ever was one, and pretty much everything on it is done superbly well in all aspects. Killer vocals, killer melodies, spot-on, complex songwriting...a great album.

Full album is up on Cruz Del Sur's bandcamp

http://cruzdelsurmusic.bandcamp.com/alb ... ummoning-2

edit: And to add an opinion I think the riffs are rad for the most part... especially when they keep it up tempo, catchy song writing, and the production is pretty perfect for what they're doing but those vocals totally ruin it... like, I wish I could just get the album sans vocals. The intermittent "harsh" vocals are laughably bad and his voice in general is just... annoying.

I don't understand how someone can be into metal and not be into traditional metal, but I guess it happens.

I love black and death and thrash and everything else but how can you like those and not trad metal!

I got into traditional heavy metal a good 5-6 years after listening to everything else apart from that. And since then, my appreciation for it has quadrupled to be honest.

Honestly I think it happens more and more frequently these days... with harsher 'pseudo' metal being the gateway for a lot of kids to get into the more legit stuff I think traditional metal gets skipped over by a lot of folks and then subsequently doesn't have the attributes that younger kids are into (harsh vocals, ridiculous tempos, super 'heavy' parts) so it takes time for them to warm up to it and appreciate it.

Damn whippersnappers!!

Buncha damn kids don't know what's good for 'em. It's all about heaviness mixed in with melodic hooks and memorable vocal lines!

Even more bizarre are the ones who state that they don't even like any music besides black/death, or that they hate clean singing. That seems very counterproductive to normal understandings of music...

If you hate clean singing, well..... You're missing out on fucktons of good stuff if that's the case. And don't even get me started on the people who're into trad metal but don't like high pitched singing. That's just beyond my understanding.

Have you guys heard Colossus? The one with the absurdly long album titles? I think there was some mention of their debut full-length awhile ago, but I just heard the EP they put out last year and it kicks some serious arse. Definitely a band to look into in the coming days. Plus I live pretty close to them so I might be able to get to a gig \m/

Yeah, I have everything they've put out so far, I definitely like them. They tend to pick pretty cool sources for their lyrics. Colossus are sort of in this new emergent mini-genre that I call "indie heavy metal," in that they play straight-up heavy metal but with indie rock influence. It's especially apparent in the vocal style, but also in some of the chord progressions, odd harmonies, and lyrics based on our generation's fantasy, sci-fi, etc. Other bands would be Priestess (second album) and Pitts vs. Preps.

While indie rock + heavy metal sounds pretty bad on paper, the bands I've heard actually tend to turn out quite good, and definitely aren't interested in hopping on the bandwagon for money like a lot of the more hipster metal bands seem to be - Priestess for example got a big burst of initial success with their first album (I think they even had a song on some Guitar Hero game) and got signed to RCA, but when they dropped a lot of the stoner side of their sound for the followup in favor of more trad heavy metal, RCA refused to release it because it wasn't commercial enough. Instead of changing to keep the major label contract, Priestess stuck to their guns, dumped RCA, and went back to their old label. Anyway it's a pretty interesting mini-trend with a lot of potential.

I am looking for singer who has similar voice to Midnight or Daniel Heiman. It doesn't have to be exactly the same timbre but same singing style and range. What would you recommend for a guy who wants new Lost Horizon-like work?

Damn, that Priestess song was pretty cool. I dismissed them as shitty rock a long time ago after hearing that song on GH, but I'll definitely have to look more into their second album. Thanks failsafe!

I couldn't really hear the 'indie rock' sound on either of those tracks. But then again, people need to sit down and decide what they actually mean when they say 'indie rock', hehe. Both songs sounded like typical, modern American heavy metal, and I think it's a lot to do with the production style; they all tend to go for a quite rocky sounding guitar sound that ends up being a bit faux-1970s ala Queens of the Stone Age. It's like a rough approximation of 1970s metal, but just a bit too smooth for its own good (it's really not too dissimilar to, say, The Sword in terms of production). It's not bad, really, but I can't see myself paying much attention to this sort of stuff. Let's just call it "The NWOMASTODONHM" or something equally crap like that.

Well, it's not a huge influence, not enough to add an actual genre tag on MA or anything. But like I said, the vocal style in Colossus sounds very indie rock to me, and in the Pitts vs. Preps track the "tail" on the main riff uses a chord progression that's not at all common in the style. It's not big but it's definitely there. You say they sound like typical modern American heavy metal, but what does that mean, exactly? If you mean stuff like Mastodon then they really don't sound much like that. You're pretty right about the production, though, but I like it just fine. As far as modern metal productions go it's better than average for sure.

So I picked up Zandelle's "Twilight Of Humanity" a little while back. I was just wondering how it compared to the rest of their albums. If they're just as good I may pick them up soon. Anyone here into them?

Geoff Tate's Queensryche has some samples out on iTunes. Based on just the small amount of samples we have and IMO, both projects sound pretty similar. As in, they sound better than the last few Queensryche atrocities, but not actually all that good. I do like the keys on GT's Q though.

Just wondering here, but am I the only one who thinks that Destiny's End's Transition goes a bit downhill after the opening song? Not saying that the rest of the album is bad or anything (far from it in fact, as it's quite good and pretty consistent), but the titletrack is just so great that, in comparison, the rest of the album seems at least somewhat underwhelming to me.

Hey guys, this is rare as I am not usually a Euro power fan but it is one genre I never delved deep in beyond the obvious and even then, never took to it. Lately it is appealing more to me than usual so a simple request. I want the most ripping fast, speed based power metal you can think of. The catch being: No keys, I want power in those riffs, and No (Or limited) back up vocals.

Something like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-vv46JgRI4

Cheers

what about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNYudD4Ate8

"The Watcher" is actually my favorite song on there. The title track is good, but I vastly prefer "The Watcher". Are you listening to the band-approved Joe Floyd mix, or the official mix the label did without the band's permission? There are some pretty big differences.

Here's some of my favorites in that style :

Savage circus
Demons & wizards
Cryonic temple
Iron savior
Mystic prophecy
Paragon

Of course there will be also mid-tempo material in their catalogs, that's why i included that song from Mystic prophecy.
Iron savior has produced mainly slower material after Condition red, but still very ok.

Haha dude, Asgard are a really bad example of Euro power. They have a pretty huge Agent Steel influence, to the point where I wouldn't really call them Euro power at all. Good band, though.

heh, maybe my idea of Euro power is flawed eh? Well, okay then, give me more in the vein of Asgard

Agent Steel influence you say? May have to check out Asgard. I've been obsessing over Skeptics Apocalypse and Savage Grace's Master of Disguise lately. I can't decide if Bleed for the Godz or Sins of the Damned is the greatest ever.