As the title says, what's the best band/artist you've discovered by clicking the "random band" link?

I discovered Blind Guardian that way, surprisingly

Not Satanic Corpse, that's for sure.

You seriously never heard of Blind Guardian until you've clicked the random band button on this website?

Never used the random band generator, i usually just talk with other metal heads of use this forum, but you had never heard Blind Guardian until you used it ? that's bizarre man, none the less its a good find!

Yea, unfortunately I always loved certain select artists but never became an actual full on "metalhead" until this past year, so I was always pretty sheltered in terms of metal

Yea, I don't have any friends, family, etc. that's into metal and my whole love of music was a complete thing of self-discovery, so I never had anyone suggesting artists to me or anything like that. I came to love metal through the usual suspects, Priest, Maiden, thrash, etc. and slowly delved deeper from there.

Thank god for this site. I've discovered and learned so much

I know BG would've popped up soon on my radar - I just happenned to find them with the random button, lol

Something that is quite entertaining is hitting the random band button, covering the genre with your hand or something, and try and guess the genre based on band picture, name, album/release titles, etc. Sometimes you will be very surprised by what genres bands are, gut instinct is quite accurate.

Never really found anything that coerced me into actually checking it out through Random Band, but I remember having found some pretty shitty ones! I guess at least it's good for that?

haha, i gave the random band button a try one afternoon. big mistake.

Occasionally I've stumbled across some "gems", but for the most part, 90 percent of the bands that pop up are shitty black metal groups with one demo that hail from some forest in northern europe and broke up ten years ago, lol

Blind Stare. Great finnish melo-death band. Love the debut!

wtf

I think I discovered Steel this way, the sideproject of Opeth. Not sure tho

Not discovered through random band

But while checking "similar artists" to Devourment on this site I found Diminished, a very interesting brutal/technical DM band (one of my top 5 now... alongside the aforementioned Devourment)

I don't use the Random Band button, but I do try to make up stuff that would be relevant to my interests in Advanced Search and that usually works pretty well. For example, searching for all active bands who play Technical Black Metal has resulted in some pretty interesting stuff.

Bloodgasm
Invoke the Suffering!!

Not the Random Band button as such, but I've checked out some some random bands from the 'Latest additions' overview, mainly based on weird/interesting names. That way I found Hand of the Horsewitch, whom I try to namedrop as much as possible. They've only got one EP out, S/T, which I think is insanely good. Atmospheric, labyrinthine, doomish black/death. Track it down if you can find it!

I'm going to go try and find this - I hope you're right anders.

I found Satanic Saucepans using the random band button, but they're a special kind of terrible - great name though.

I also found Kataplexis on there - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPq1J-QbC9A. I also found the doom/sludge band Abandon through it. This album is fantastic, but is not easy to listen to by any means http://www.metal-archives.com/albums/Ab ... End/251044

Yeah well, I'd put their EP in my top 10-20 releases for 2001-2010. Really great stuff! They have a few songs on bandcamp, go check them out, if you're still interested, message me.

http://handofthehorsewitch.bandcamp.com/

What in the name of satan is this ? I mean I took a random song from this band and, well it's not that bad, or is it ? Don't know what to think of it...
I had quite some fun listening to this. Funny.

But those album covers though...

Morionor: imagine a mix between Dragonforce-like shredding, symphonic metal and black metal. I know it might sound odd like that but it's a great band. They changed their name though and disappeared.


Inferno: a prog/thrash band, they made two demos. The Architect demo is great stuff, specially the opening song "the second hand".

LOL never tried it before but after a few clicks I hit Crescent Lament, not sure if I like it yet but it sure is a hot chick!

I just stumbled upon Ohen, a [presumably Christian?] symphonic black metal band from Slovakia. Being a Christian myself and having just recently got married to a Slovak woman, this is a particularly fun find for me.

Jesus Mullet. Not that they're good or anything. But knowing such a band with such a name exists made me a little more aware of the capacities of human nature. It made me a little less naive.

^Haha that's pretty good. I had to look them up. They have a song entitled Logjammin' which I can only assume is a nod to The Big Lebowski. Awesome.

I really happy to hear someone else knows the glory of Hand of the Horsewitch. I saw them play the Royal Albert here in Winnipeg years back with a Darkthrone-esque (reminded me of Plaguewielder era) band called Hunger also from Kamloops... and you would have spotted them after I submitted them to MA. Yes, it was just as good live, immensely heavy for just a three-piece. I've never heard another band combine elements of doom, death and black how they did. Maybe Triptykon, or Cold Cell minus the death metal elements, or perhaps Thorr's Hammer minus the black metal elements. You might also dig Dire Omen or Altars of Grief. Dire Omen feature that Incantation/Immolation crawling doom-death, and then their other side is bludgeoning death/black a la Behemoth meets Portal. Altars of Grief are on the more melodeath-doom side of things with a smattering of blackened influence, like My Dying Bride or early Katatonia meets mid-era Woods of Ypres. Sadly, I am unsure how active this band is these days. I saw a side-project Bridgeburner a couple years back now and it didn't seem as though HOTH was progressing much.

I use the random band button on occasion - as others have pointed out advanced searches are great for focused searches, such as 'atmospheric death' or 'progressive doom' - and found an old gem in the form of Opera IX, a band I knew from an Iron Maiden covers compilation I'd owned years back. Listened to their debut The Call of the Wood and was mildly surprised I don't see this band mentioned more often on the boards. 5 epic-length songs, a female vocalist who's equally adept at singing and screaming, symphonics & piano galore, pan flutes, inventive songwriting, and historically this came out in the era of Rotting Christ, Septic Flesh, Tiamat, Dimmu Borgir, Master's Hammer and Bethlehem, yet rarely see Opera IX mentioned in the same breath (if at all). If you already listen to bands such as Selvans and Darkestrah, it's worth going back to mid-90s Italy and have a listen to that mystical debut.