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Laughing Man

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I haven't listened to Trivium in a long time, but I used to really dig Ascendancy and Shogun a lot

 

might have to give those another listen sometime

 

edit: coincidentally, just found out that Ember to Inferno is getting reissued in the near future. might have to check that out too.

Edited by Ryuujin
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I haven't listened to Trivium in a long time, but I used to really dig Ascendancy and Shogun a lot

 

might have to give those another listen sometime

 

edit: coincidentally, just found out that Ember to Inferno is getting reissued in the near future. might have to check that out too.

Good thing I haven't bought that album yet...I'd rather just buy the reissue.

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Boston    Stratovarius    Symphony X    Epica

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+1 for Iron Maiden though, they are indeed amazing. Trivium I also used to like quite a lot, but these days Shogun is the only album of theirs that I still sometimes come back to.

 

 

 

Maiden is just a classic! And I'd have to call Shogun my favorite album from the band, closely followed by In Waves. Which songs are the ones you value the most from Shogun?

 

 

Shogun, Kirisute Gomen and Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis are my favourites.

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Shogun, Kirisute Gomen and Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis are my favourites.

 

I quite enjoy "Gomen," Shogun, Insurrection, and I LARGELY enjoy Throes of Perdition. That one and the title track are the greatest things about that album, although it's an album I can listen to in one sitting when the mood is right.

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Other great bands:


Iron Maiden    Journey    Mercenary    The Unguided    Trivium


Boston    Stratovarius    Symphony X    Epica

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take this with a massive spoonful of salt, but somebody on the Megadeth forum who claims to be in-the-know (and apparently is a longtime member who has been right about things before) has said that next year the Big 4 (save possibly for Metallica, who seem to be taking their time) will all release their new albums within a relatively short span of time and then do another Big 4 tour in support of them all. said person also has indicated that Marty Friedman and Nick Menza will be rejoining Megadeth, possibly for the new album and a tour to celebrate Rust in Peace's 25th anniversary.

 

all this is just rumor and hearsay, but it's pretty interesting nonetheless.

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i would make a tremendous effort to see megadeth's rust in peace lineup

 

i mean they just did a rust in peace 20th anniversary tour 4 years ago, and even released rust in peace live so i dont know why they would play it in full but if they played it in full with the album lineup i would be so happy

 

and another big 4 tour, aw yiss

 

 

 

...except slayer's lost jeff and metallica's been bleh for like 20 years now but hey, a big 4 tour

only in dreams.

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by all accounts I've heard, Metallica are still great live, so there's that.

 

on a related note: Anthrax have officially announced they're in the studio recording their new album for an early 2015 release.

 

also in Megadeth-related developments, Nick Menza has officially stated that he's open to rejoining, while Dave Ellefson has stated that he and Mustaine are "re-evaluating the future" and still intend to record their new album in early 2015 for a release sometime in the summer.

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super excited for more anthrax/megadeth news. now if only metallica could get their act together and finally release a new album

 

also nightwish annonced a release date for their first single from the upcoming album with Floor Jansen, called "Élan". very excited for that too

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been diggin the debut EP by Necromancing the Stone, a project formed by members of Arsis, The Black Dahlia Murder, The Absence, and Brimstone Coven. it has more of a traditional heavy metal style than the aforementioned bands, with vocals sort of reminiscent of Messiah Marcolin from Candlemass and occasional backing harsh vox.

 

EP's free on their bandcamp. solid stuff.

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I'm really digging the new Bloodbath album, Grand Morbid Funeral. When they released the first single I wasn't feeling Nick's vocals, but now I do think that they really fit the music well. I was expecting him to use the same style as he did on the early Paradise Lost albums and that's probably what threw me off with the single, but I'm really digging the new vocals now.

As far as death metal supergroups with members of Paradise Lost go this year, I still prefer Vallenfyre's album, but this is really great too.

 

 

Also gave a listen to the new Architects album, Lost Forever // Lost Together, and to my surprise I liked it quite a bit. The last album I've heard from them was Hollow Crown, after which I pretty much stopped listening to metalcore, but I'm really enjoying this new one.

Might have to go back and check out the two albums I missed, although I remember not liking what I did hear from The Here and Now.

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by all accounts I've heard, Metallica are still great live, so there's that.

Seen them live on Rock Werchter this year, so can confirm. :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

my subgenres of choice are primarily melodeath, thrash, doom, death, and gothic metal.

 

been on a major thrash kick especially as of late. rediscovered a lot of old favorites and dived a bit deeper into some artists I'd overlooked.

 

 

 

unrelated though, been getting into Samael lately. really killer industrial/black metal, especially the album Passage. not sure why I didn't check them out sooner.

Edited by Ryuujin
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If you like Thrash, check out Trivium and Mercenary...both feature Thrash elements, though the former incorporates more of a metalcore/thrash sound while the latter is a huge mix of melodeath/thrash/power/progressive metal.

 

As for me...I like bands with unique vocal styles and lots of melodies (and a fair amount of heaviness). Favorite Subgenres include Progressive Metal, Power Metal, Symphonic Metal, Alternative Metal, Melodic Death Metal, and Metalcore.

 

My favorite bands, however, are usually a mix of genres: ex. Evergrey (Dark Prog/Power), Epica (Symphonic, Power/Prog, and some hints of death), and Trivium (Metalcore/thrash with some prig elements). You should definitely check out all the bands mentioned here. They have some very good stuff, Epica especially.

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Other great bands:


Iron Maiden    Journey    Mercenary    The Unguided    Trivium


Boston    Stratovarius    Symphony X    Epica

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Turns out that this is an excellent year for atmospheric black metal. Been listening to new albums by Darkspace, Agalloch, Saor, Panopticon and Primordial, and they're all pretty incredible.

 

Also discovered Ne Oblivescaris through their new album Citadel, which is some really sweet progressive metal with death metal influences.

 

With that I'm pretty much done with my backlog of this year's albums, so if anyone has any suggestions for slightly less known 2014 albums that I would have missed, that'd be awesome.

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since you're enjoying the black metal releases this year, I highly recommend checking out Oathbreaker by Hoth. it's probably become my metal AotY. it's a concept album about the rise and fall of a tragic hero that combines elements of black metal, melodic death metal, progressive metal, folk metal, etc. into a really cold, icy, and epic musical package. super good stuff.

 

speaking of which, I just bought that album, on cassette of all things. the CD's currently out of print but they're doing a cassette release that's limited to 100 copies. I got a gray shell cassette, which is further limited to just 25 copies. came with a digital download of the album through Bandcamp as well so that's pretty sweet. nice little collector's item.

Edited by Ryuujin
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It's been a decent year for me too. not the greatest ever, but solid enough. Got new stuff from Anathema, Anacrusis (kinda), Anubis Gate, Machinae Supremacy, Epica, Haken, Mastodon, Opeth, Xandria...

 

Most of those were really good IMO. Opeth and Anathema were slightly disappointing but still great, while Haken and Epica released stuff to go with their best work. I think MaSu wins with Phantom Shadow, though, and I called it in august and I'm saying it now, it's my album of the year for sure.

 

(also relevant to this topic, Within Temptation's new album was godawful)

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Epica,... Xandria...

 

These two bands release some amazing albums! Them and Evergrey absolutely triumphed this year. If I have to mention bad albums: In Flames...just don't buy that album...and that's the only bad one I heard (granted I didn't really buy that many albums this year). I'm curious to hear the new Amaranthe album though as I haven't bought it yet.

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Other great bands:


Iron Maiden    Journey    Mercenary    The Unguided    Trivium


Boston    Stratovarius    Symphony X    Epica

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since you're enjoying the black metal releases this year, I highly recommend checking out Oathbreaker by Hoth. it's probably become my metal AotY. it's a concept album about the rise and fall of a tragic hero that combines elements of black metal, melodic death metal, progressive metal, folk metal, etc. into a really cold, icy, and epic musical package. super good stuff.

 

speaking of which, I just bought that album, on cassette of all things. the CD's currently out of print but they're doing a cassette release that's limited to 100 copies. I got a gray shell cassette, which is further limited to just 25 copies. came with a digital download of the album through Bandcamp as well so that's pretty sweet. nice little collector's item.

 

That was pretty sweet. While I'm not loving it as much as you seem to be, it's definitely a great album and I'll give it more listens for sure. Thanks!

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Peter Tägtgren appreciation post. Hypocrisy's been one of my favorite bands for a while and lately I've been digging his industrial/alternative metal side-project Pain a lot too, and of course his vocals on Nightmares Made Flesh are part of why it's my favorite Bloodbath album. he's also a killer producer (responsible for albums like Ironbound by Overkill, Follow the Reaper by Children of Bodom, Monotheist by Celtic Frost, most of Immortal and Sabaton's recent works, Amon Amarth's first few albums, etc.) and he looks like the unholy combination of Johnny Depp and Steve Buscemi. dude's awesome.

 

 

 

it's the start of a new year and I've asked the "favorite albums of the year" question to death, so I'll take a slightly different approach: what was everybody's #1 favorite metal album of 2014?

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That's turning out to be a tough question. Haven't finalised my list yet, but right now I'm looking at The Satanist by Behemoth,  Dark Space III I by Darkspace, Aura by Saor and Longhena by Gridlink. It's probably gonna be one of those.

Although the albums by Vallenfyre and Panopticon are also pretty close. And if we're counting powerviolence, then I also have the album by Full of... erm... Full of Heck & Merzbow to consider.

 

Yeah, it's one of those years. While there hasn't been an album of the same magnitude as Das Seelenbrechen by Ihsahn or Vetikal by Cult of Luna which blew me away completely in 2013, there's been a much larger number of generally great albums. It's actually quite hard for me to narrow down my list without excluding several albums which I feel deserve to be on it.

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on Evergrey_Toa's recommendation, I finally checked out Mercenary. ended up buying their Metamorphosis and Through the Darkest Days albums and ordering the Recollections: The Century Media Years box set (which includes the albums 11 Dreams, The Hours That Remain, and Architect of Lies with bonus tracks). that should tell you how much I enjoyed what I heard. I'm a sucker for that kind of slick, modern, anthemic, super-melodic-melodeath so they're right up my alley.

Edited by Ryuujin
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I only have Metamorphasis, Architect of Lies, and The Hours That Remain. The first of those is a solid album, the 2nd has some great songs and some not so great ones, and I haven't listened to the last one very much yet. But I'm glad you liked them :)

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Other great bands:


Iron Maiden    Journey    Mercenary    The Unguided    Trivium


Boston    Stratovarius    Symphony X    Epica

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new Moonspell song, "The Last of Us", is out for streaming. I knew they were going to go in a more melodic direction, but this sounds like a HIM song. seems they're completely embracing their Omega White style and then some.

 

 

 

 

I only have Metamorphasis, Architect of Lies, and The Hours That Remain. The first of those is a solid album, the 2nd has some great songs and some not so great ones, and I haven't listened to the last one very much yet. But I'm glad you liked them :)

 

to be honest, Metamorphosis is probably my least favorite of the ones I've heard so far. it's not bad, but it seems a lot more generic and sometimes kind of boring.

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So of course right after I finalise my best of the year list, I discover an album that is probably worthy of being somewhere on it.

In this case, it's Losing the Sun by Black Autumn. Really atmospheric black metal, with a hint of shoegaze/blackgaze thrown in.

 

Too late for me to put it on my list, but I'm really digging it. It only reaffirms what an excellent year for atmospheric black metal it has been.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Katatonia have announced that they'll be releasing a new live album in Blu-Ray, DVD, CD, and vinyl formats called Sanctitude. it was recorded during their Unplugged & Reworked tour and features a selection of songs from across their career performed in a stripped down, semi-acoustic fashion similar to the Dethroned & Uncrowned album they released in 2013.

 

absolutely stoked for this. I usually don't buy live albums because there's never really much of a difference from the studio versions, but since these are all-new reworked versions of the songs, I'll make an exception. the artwork (by usual artist Travis Smith) is incredible as well, may be one of my favorite Katatonia album covers to date.

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, anybody heard any great 2015 stuff yet?

 

I've only heard a few, but so far my favourite is The Mysterious Ways of Repetitive Art by Chapel of Disease. It's a really awesome death metal album with a lot of traditional doom metal influence. There's a track that pretty much sounds like a death metal Black Sabbath, and it's pretty sweet. A lot of the songs are on the longer side and even have a progressive feel to them with the instrumentation and changes in structure, so this album really pushes a lot of the right buttons for me.

 

Other then that, there's Mach Dich Frei by Finsterforst which is a really great folk/black metal album with a clear Moonsorrow influence, but still quite unique as they take influence from German folk music and mythology rather than Finnish.

 

And there's also The Heart of the Underworld by Desolate Shrine which is some pretty sweet death doom metal.

Edited by Ghost of Romance

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the only 2015 metal (or metalcore, in this case) release I've heard so far is the new 36 Crazyfists album, Time and Trauma. it was pretty solid. definitely an improvement over their last two.

 

update: got the new Moonspell album Extinct, did not disappoint one bit

 

the best is yet to come, though. I'm looking forward to a lot of releases, including but not limited to: the Sanctitude live album by Katatonia, The Plague Within by Paradise Lost, Cold Inferno by Disarmonia Mundi, Black Bride by Gyze, Skyline Whispers by The Night Flight Orchestra (not metal, but features members of several metal bands), and the as-yet-untitled new albums from The Agony Scene, Anthrax, Blood Stain Child, Fear Factory, The Foreshadowing, Gojira, In the Silence, Katatonia, My Dying Bride, Nails, Obsydians, Soilwork, Swallow the Sun, and Testament that have either been completed or confirmed to be in the works.

 

there are some others I'm interested in but not necessarily excited about (the new Megadeth comes to mind) and probably some I forgot, but those are the big ones for me this year.

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  • 2 weeks later...

It definitely does seem like the best is yet to come. I listened through a bunch of 2015 albums I've heard good things about since my last post, and apart from Ascension Lost by Thulcandra, which is some really sweet melodic black metal in the vein of Dissection, I mostly found them to be very average. I had hopes for Sylosis and Ensiferum, but those haven't been very good. This year hasn't really impressed me very much thus far, especially considering we already had Behemoth's The Satanist by this time last year. Hopefully that will change when I give the Moonspell album a listen though.

 

As far as stuff I'm looking forward to goes, Graveward by Sigh is the closest with a release on the 13th of April, and I am very interested in hearing it. After that, it's The Congregation by Leprous with a release in late May, followed of course by The Plague Within by Paradise Lost on the 1st of June. I really wish we had some more information on the latter album. It's not like PL to stay silent for so long. Along with Ihsahn, it's my most anticipated album of the year.

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  • 3 weeks later...

well today was a bit of a downer for metal. first Chance Garnette from Skeletonwitch announced he has a drinking problem and is out of the band, and then In Solitude announced their break-up. that last one especially sucks (well, I mean, not as much as having a drinking problem, but moreso than a band losing a member), because I thought their last album was a step in the right direction and I was excited to see where they'd go next. I'm sure they would have had a bright future ahead of them.

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Leprous just released a new song - The Price. It's definitely a fair bit different from their previous stuff, but I am digging it. Really excited for the album.

 

 

In other news, Faith No More are doing a US tour with Refused. My current feelings of envy aside, I am incredibly happy to hear that Refused are continuing to play together, and hopeful that perhaps they'll hit Europe again soon.

Maybe this even means that the rumours of a new album had some truth to them...

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  • 1 month later...

Kamelot's new album "Haven" is simply divine.

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I'm trying to find somewhere to listen to it. THinking about buying it but only if I enjoy it, because I love Seventh Wonder and Tommy Karevik but I haven't heard any Kamelot stuff that I liked much. SO it's a opretty iffy situation lol. I heard thwe two singles and one was amazing while the other was meh, so I'd like to hear it all before I spend money on it.

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I only have Metamorphasis, Architect of Lies, and The Hours That Remain. The first of those is a solid album, the 2nd has some great songs and some not so great ones, and I haven't listened to the last one very much yet. But I'm glad you liked them :)

 

to be honest, Metamorphosis is probably my least favorite of the ones I've heard so far. it's not bad, but it seems a lot more generic and sometimes kind of boring.

I share that opinion now. The only songs from that album that I constantly loop are Memoria, Shades of Grey, and On the Edge of Sanity. 

Of the albums, I think Through Our Darkest Days and Architect of Lies are the strongest ones with the strongest songs. I don't own 11 Dreams so no comment there.

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Other great bands:


Iron Maiden    Journey    Mercenary    The Unguided    Trivium


Boston    Stratovarius    Symphony X    Epica

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I haven't heard their two albums prior to 11 Dreams, but of what I have heard, I'd rank it: The Hours That Remain > Through Our Darkest Days > 11 Dreams > Architect of Lies > Metamorphosis. none of them are actually bad, though. Mercenary is really consistently good. I wonder if they'll be releasing anything this year?

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