Controversial opinions on metal

They're really, really good at composing songs and their vocalist is really good at both clean and harsh vocals. They incorporate different styles of metal and folk a hell of a lot more seamlessly and effectively than most bands as well. Plus they're not really gay unless you're asking some bald neo nazi with camo trousers and some 90s NSBM tapes in his Yugo Sana.
 
This Arkona right?



Yeah, they aren't bad. Never liked Ensiferum. I use to go to those Paganfest shows at around 14-17 years old and when Ensiferum headlined (which they've always seemed to) I'd just leave because I could't take them. I do like some folk/black like Aes Dana:



but it's really hard for me to find music i like in this genre. Pagan/black is definitely awesome though. I find that a lot of folk/black I like kinda sounds more similar to pagan/black.
 
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Arkona are top notch. There's a reason they're so highly regarded in Russia - they know their stuff, as far as their culture's folk music is concerned, and communicate pre-Christian Russian traditional very well.

We opened for them in November and I was totally floored by their performance. I'm not too big on party folk metal, stuff like Korpiklaani and Finntroll, but serious stuff like Moonsorrow and Dordeduh is badass and I would say Arkona is comparable.
 
Arkona are top notch. There's a reason they're so highly regarded in Russia - they know their stuff, as far as their culture's folk music is concerned, and communicate pre-Christian Russian traditional very well.

We opened for them in November and I was totally floored by their performance. I'm not too big on party folk metal, stuff like Korpiklaani and Finntroll, but serious stuff like Moonsorrow and Dordeduh is badass and I would say Arkona is comparable.

I really, really want to see them live. There aren't really any other bands I care about seeing live now, but I would really like to see them, just maybe not enough to go on my own to a festival in germany or e.europe just for them. I might see them if they do a london show at some point in the future though.
 
I've only heard like one song, but it struck me as really cheesy. For some reason I tend not to like things from Finland that aren't OSDM.
 
Nostradamus by Judas Priest is actually pretty cool. There are songs on there that are way better than anything on Turbo, for example. It's better than Ram it Down as well. The rhyming verse was a tiresome when I first heard it, but after going back for the first time in years, it's actually pretty cool. Some of the guitar solos are really great classic priest and the other guitar work is all very nice and sweet. The production is actually cool as well, because it's so different for them. Pretty much the only problem with the album is that it's too long. If you divided it into two, the average quality of songs is probably average for their career.
 
Examples of songs better than Reckless and Hard as Iron? I don't believe it. Admittedly I've only listened to the album one and a half times or something, but
 
Judas Priest is one of those bands that's been copied so many times that even the original sounds watered down and boring. There's a ton of bands like this i.e Iron Maiden and Napalm Death ect that this applies to and I still like them regardless but for some reason JP is the exception. I just can't get into their music at all.
 
Hardly. Almost no one sounds like Priest's 76-78 period, and while you can find a few cases of bands that take after their pop-metal stuff (Grim Reaper, Malice, Picture), none of them had the songwriting talent and willingness to try different things that Priest did. Painkiller is the only album that has really been copied to death, but only you are to blame for listening to Primal Fear or whatever other band.
 
I think Priest are pretty good but I don't love them the way everyone else seems to, even their old school stuff. It's too rock. I prefer a more Sabbath-y sound, or something a bit more energetic, like Maiden.