Non-gay bro thread a.k.a. Random offtopic stuff.

[drawntoblack]

Seriously, how the fuck are you going to take nearly a decade to make your “phase two” album? Fuck off.

Hot Metal: It’s been nine years since The Singularity (Phase I – Neohumanity). I can only presume there’s multiple reasons for that?

Per Nilsson: “Yeah, I suppose there’s a bunch of reasons. We started writing the album, writing and recording most of it in 2016 and 2017. And at the end of 2016, I had grown really tired of playing live with Scar Symmetry. And sort of the entire situation because we never managed to sort our shit out, so to speak. We were poorly managed, and that is because I was managing. And that’s not my strong suit. So it was always very stressful. And whenever we went out on tour and things broke, gear broke, and the flights were cancelled and was just like a shitshow. Like, (it was) some fault of mine, but also (it was) I don’t know, celestial shitstorms, something.

“So by the end of 2016, I was feeling like I probably wouldn’t play want to play live with Scar Symmetry any more. I was like, ‘I think we’re going to be a studio band. But I would love to be able to tour with some other band, where I don’t have to be in charge, be responsible for anything but my guitar playing’. And I suppose the universe provided me with what I asked for, because I was asked to join classic Swedish power metal band Nocturnal Rites, which I did. We did an album and some shows.
“But shortly after they asked me I was asked to start touring with Meshuggah. I joined two of my favourite bands and got to tour and have a lot of fun with them. And I got to experience that thing where I wasn’t in charge of the gear or the crew or the budget or anything. And I got to do that for a few years.
“And while I was doing that, Scar Symmetry was sort of put on hold a little bit, even though we did some shows. Every now and then we kept working on the album also. Very slowly, just kept things going. But it was like Meshuggah was such a big deal. So it was hard for me to book a lot of shows with Scar Symmetry, in case something would show up with Meshuggah. With Nocturnal Rites it was a different thing because there was one clash where I couldn’t join them and then they had just a replacement guy for that show. But I didn’t want to have a replacement for myself in my own band.

“So then in 2019 I became a dad, and then the pandemic came. So that’s basically what happened. And then coming out of the pandemic, and Fredrik returning to Meshuggah, it seemed the perfect time to get the band back together full-time. Full-time and full energy ahead, and (we) finished up the album, got a new record deal, got everything sorted. All the business stuff, all the shit that I seemed to be unable to get sorted before, I managed to get that sorted because we got ourselves a new management and legal representation, all kinds of stuff like that, that really makes it easier. And I sort of learned that I picked up that from being inside Meshuggah; being the big band they are, and the way they conduct their business was very informative for me.”

 

[Xpyro125]

Well, you know what, that’s fair enough, can’t argue with that at all.

 

[drawntoblack]

Well, you know what, that’s fair enough, can’t argue with that at all.

I'd say I'm more fan of Per Nilsson than the actual band. He is one of the best guitar players out there plus he is very down to earth. It's not in this interview that I posted, but I remember an interview from a few years back when he stated that it was basically his full-time job taking care of either his mom or dad who required a full time caretaker for medical reasons. So I imagine that was probably a mental burden as well.
Anyway, at least he says it how it is, he is the sole reason why things took so long. No bullshit.

 

[Xpyro125]

I'd say I'm more fan of Per Nilsson than the actual band. He is one of the best guitar players out there plus he is very down to earth. It's not in this interview that I posted, but I remember an interview from a few years back when he stated that it was basically his full-time job taking care of either his mom or dad who required a full time caretaker for medical reasons. So I imagine that was probably a mental burden as well.
Anyway, at least he says it how it is, he is the sole reason why things took so long. No bullshit.

Honestly, I respect that, and knowing this much about him here gives me a lot of respect for him as a person and as a band member. I still maintain my stance on the music— I think his riffs could use a ton of work, and I hope they’ve gotten better since Holographic universe, but his solos are really good. I’d like to hope that he’s doing better now either way, I get how some of that shit takes a toll on you.

 

[DE4life]

I can remember seeing Scar Symmetry at Bloodstock 2007 and being absolutely blown away by Chaosweaver and especially Mind Machine. It was the first time I'd heard them and made a point of making sure I listened to more of their stuff when I got home.

Ultimately I was a bit underwhelmed. I still think both Mind Machine and Chaosweaver are awesome songs, but SBD and PBP as albums... eh. Not bad, but nothing as memorable as those two. I think Oscillation Point was the only other song I really enjoyed. Hologaphic Universe didn't really do anything for me either so at that point I decided they weren't for me and I haven't really listened to anything of theirs since - although Christian Alvestam is an extremely talented vocalist and I like the stuff he did with Solution .45.

 

[The Grayfox]

There's some songs on Pitch Black Progress that I do really like but ultimately, I think its just an ok album and most of their material hasn't aged well for me. I will still go back and listen to songs like Dreaming 24/7, Mind Machine and The Illusionist from time to time but that's about it. I'd rather listen to the first Solution .45 album for sure.

 

[DE4life]

It's weird with Scar Symmetry because it seems like I should really like their stuff, at least during the earlier years, but for whatever reason a lot of their stuff just doesn't click for me. A few songs do and they are awesome, but the rest just... don't. It's a shame.

 

[ThePhobiac]

Been revisiting Rise to Fall lately, a small-time Spanish band I discovered about seven years ago. I consider them pretty Disarmonia-Mundi-like and they occupy a similar musical "space" as that band, imo. Not the most consistent act, but their gems are among my favorite songs in the genre (The Threshold actually has my favorite metal chorus of all time).

 

[DE4life]

There's a few Rise to Fall songs I like, but overall there's just something about their sound that doesn't quite grip me. I think it's just a tad too modern MDM/metalcore for my tastes. I think they're a solid outfit though.

I only just discovered a band called Lovebites. Apparently they're somewhat well known and popular, but I'd never heard of them until now. An all-female Japanese band and I'm kind of blown away, I think they sound amazing. Heavy/thrash inspired power metal.





Having listened to the audio, I did not expect the band to look like this:



These ladies can shred.

 

[DE4life]

Can I just state how annoying it is that so many bands soften their guitar tone on later releases. I see it with so many bands when I go through their discographies and it's so frustrating. It's a noticeable change to give the guitars less of an edge, where the sound as a whole becomes a lot more compressed. Basically what in Flames did from Come Clarity to ASOP, but they are far from the only ones. I really love the production on Lovebites' Clockwork Immortality - clear, powerful, bursting with energy. Very cool.

Then I move on to the next album, Electric Pentagram:



Now this is also a fantastic song, just as good as the stuff on Clockwork Immortality - the beginning is unadulterated Maiden worship and it's great - but you can clearly hear that the guitars have been softened and it dulls the impact significantly. This song with CI production = top tier, but with this compressed, soft production not quite at that level. I don't understand why bands do this. Maybe it appeals to a wider audience if the production isn't as powerful? Maybe it's because, as @galvanized often reminds us, it's all about how it sounds from an iphone speaker? Idk, but it's so disappointing. The only consolation is that they're extremely solid live and the live versions sound a little more raw and energetic, which helps demonstrate what they could have sounded like in studio if the music hadn't been compressed so much.

 

[ThePhobiac]

@DE4life A while back you posted some Halo Effect songs with an AI-trained Anders on vocals. Did you use Tortoise TTS for that training or some other program? I'm interested in doing some similar edits, but never had much luck with Tortoise.

 

[DE4life]

I used Ultimate Vocal Remover for isolating the vocal stem from the music (either for training material or to use as the donor vocal file) and then RVC-Beta to do the training and clone the training model to the selected vocal stem.

I'll be honest, it only ever worked with Anders to Mikael and vice versa. I never got anything else to work at a remotely decent level.

 

[DE4life]

Can't remember the last time I posted a most recent ten songs listened to, so let's bring it back.

Alice Cooper - Poison (1989 - Glam Metal/Hard Rock)
Percival - Raise Your Arms (2021 - Power Metal)
Marius Danielson's Legend of Valley Doom - Stars Will Light the Way (2021 - Power Metal)
Alias Eye - Just Another Tragic Song (2001 - Prog Rock/Metal)
Alias Eye - Arabesque (2012 - Prog Rock/Metal)
Dragony - Call of the Wild (2017 - Power Metal)
Dragonland - Starfall (2004 - Power Metal)
Code Geass OST - Continued Story (2008 - Soundtrack)
No Doubt - Don't Speak (1995 - Alt Rock)
Avantasia - The Wicked Symphony (2010 - Power Metal)

 

[DE4life]

Apoptygma Berzerk - In This Together (Alt Rock - 2005)
Edguy - Until We Rise Again (Power Metal - 1998)
Blinded Colony - Once Bitten, Twice Shy (Melodic Death Metal - 2006)
Kania - Ethereal Skyes (Melodic Death Metal - 2003)
Sonata Arctica - My Land (Power Metal - 1999)
W.A.S.P - Babylon's Burning (Heavy Metal - 2009)
Sonata Arctica - Blank File (Power Metal - 1999)
Lovebites - Pledge of the Saviour (Power Metal - 2018)
The Black Mages - The Decisive Battle (Instrumental Metal - 2003)
Beast in Black - Blade Runner (Power Metal - 2021)

 

[ThePhobiac]

I'll put my metal cred on the line.

Dream Theater - Bridges in the Sky
Theatre of Tragedy - Dying: I Only Feel Apathy
Ra - Sky
Ethereal Shroud - Discarnate
In Flames - Resin
Dronny Darko - Leaving Earth [2135 A.D.]
Sephiroth - The Call of the Serpent
Emperor - Curse You All Men!
Anathema - Destiny is Dead
Trha - ödënthändelä vòn la gönmëtwa

 

[DE4life]

This is a judgement-free zone, as decreed by me, one half co-owner of this thread alongside A88. Unless you post that you've been listening to anything off Battles, then you can GTF.

I downloaded an album by a band called Sephiroth a long time ago, purely because I was and am a FF7 fanboy. It was just ambient, doomy stuff though so I didn't think much of it. There's a bunch of bands called Sephiroth but this album was called Cathedron and was released in 1999... so not sure if it's the same band you've listed there or not

 

[ThePhobiac]

Same band! Draconian Poetry is the only album I've heard by them. I'm into that ambient doomy stuff. I'm a FF7 fan myself, but this band (apparently it's just one guy, as these ambient projects tend to be) just happened to show up on my Pandora in the late '00s.

 

[Pallbearer]

I've been listening to Savage Circus quite a bit. The band was founded in 2004 by the original Blind Guardian drummer Thomen Stauch, who had grown dissatisfied with his main band's musical direction, so he started a new project where he could play music more in vein of old school BG. Piet Sielck (Iron Savior) was the first to join and in Jens Carlsson (Persuader, ex-Dark Empire) they probably found the most Hansi Kursch -like vocalist they could dream of. Jens brought in his bandmate Emil Norberg as second guitarist.

The band went on to release "Dreamland Manor" in 2005, but things soon started going awry. Thomen went on external leave because of some health/personal problems and upon not showing signs of returning was eventually asked to leave his own band. (OTOH he also had some arguments with Sielck and didn't want to work with him anyway.) Mike Terrana was brought in as a replacement. Another album, "Of Doom and Death" was released in 2009, but the reviews were less favorable for this one. Around 2011-2012 Sielck, Terrana and the bassist Yenz Leonhardt all left. With Sielck out of the band, Thomen returned and assembled a new line-up with Carlsson, Norberg and some new guys. However, the band broke up before they could finish their third album when Jens and Emil left in 2014 to concentrate on their main band.

Some have said "second-rate Blind Guardian", but I find the songs especially on the first album well-written and enjoyable. The second album has its moments too, but I think it's definitely the weaker of the two. Surely the stuff often sounds uncannily close to old BG, but as it was Stauch who started it, I guess it can be considered more like a carry-over than a clone to be fair.

 

[DE4life]

I really liked Dreamland Manor, but they definitely seemed to lose a step between the debut album and Of Doom and Death. I don't know if it was Stauch's departure or the band being conscious of being labelled a BG clone, but ODAD just didn't resonate with me in the same way as the debut album. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't great either - stuck in that middle ground with a lot of other bands doing similar things.

On DM you can absolutely hear the BG influence. Give a SG song to somebody somewhat familiar with BG and I'm not sure they'd be able to tell that it's a different band - especially with Carlsson's vocals sounding so similar to Hansi's. The latter has a pretty distinct vocal sound which is a big part of the BG package, and Carlsson sounding so similar is obviously going to invite immediate comparisons.

It's a shame they never really went anywhere as I felt like the first album had a lot of potential. It was always going to be in Blind Guardian's shadow due to the similarities, but I think over time they could have established their own sound. It just never happened in the end.

 

[Pallbearer]

I've got the impression the band was not a very tight unit around the time of ODAD anymore. Stauch was gone, and as far as I know Carlsson and Norberg have always worked day jobs as Persuader never really made it big, so perhaps they had commitment problems already. Sielck's main focus has always been on Iron Savior. I remember some interview with Stauch around the time when the unfinished album was in the making (2013?) and he said there's been delays because the Swedes seem to be so busy with life, or something.

Trha - ödënthändelä vòn la gönmëtwa

That sounded so weird I just had to check them out. And I quite liked it. But is he singing in some made up language or... ?