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

[The Grayfox]

During Hypocrisy's golden years, there is not a single Pain album that I would say even comes close. Abducted, The Final Chapter, The Fourth Dimension, self-titled, Into The Abyss. It's also subjective and very different styles of metal. When I hear a line like "suck my balls" though, it's hard for me to take it seriously. Hypocrisy is an afterthought for Peter at this point. I think he puts most of his focus into Pain, which is fine. It's more mainstream sounding and therefor more accessible. He probably makes a lot more money touring with Pain than Hypocrisy.

 

[Moonshield_]

I agree about that line "suck my balls" not being his strongest lyrics. I felt embarrassed too when I first heard it.

Those Hypo albums you mentioned definitely are amazing.

Every releases until ATOED are amongst the best things that ever happened to the whole metal world

(I mean from The Fourth Dimension because the first two are juste proto Hypo)

 

[drawntoblack]

I like both Hypo and Pain for their respective atmospheres but lyrics were always cheesy if not straight up silly. They don't ruin the rest of the music for me personally at all.
I still prefer older Pain stuff when they were more of a straight up industrial band than nowadays where stylistically it's fairly free and anything can happen between two songs. Check out their older live dvd when he had two chicks in the band, perfect pacing from one song to another.

 

[DE4life]

Giving some love to a new, currently unsigned Finnish band. Only two permanent members as far as I can see - Roi Partanen and Zsolt Szlagyi. Can't say I know either of them, but it doesn't look like either have been active in the metal scene for much longer than a few years anyway. They appear to have guest vocalists on all their tracks - Nitte Valo, Mikael Salo, Leonard F. Guillan, Stephen Baker and Juanma Draven. Again, I'd be lying if I said I knew any of these people (except Nitte Valo, as I have listened to early Battle Beast and also Burning Point).

Anyhow, their debut album (self-titled) is pretty eclectic, but that's what I love about new bands. No expectations, no conforming to a preconceived notion of what they need to sound like. Just throwing shit out there and seeing how it lands. Cyhra - Letters to Myself style. That's what I want. There are a few songs with lyrics about the Ukraine/Russia conflict, so if you don't want politics in your metal this might be a deal breaker, but to me I don't see the issue with singing about a real war any more than a fictional one. Arguably it makes more sense to do the former nowadays.



I appreciate any band that gives me a song that reminds me of old school 1990s Power Metal. The cheesy, earworm melodies, singalong chorus, crystal clear production, energetic drumming... all there.



Then you've got one song which is purely instrumental, 'Capital Punishment', which is much more standard modern melodic metal, but has gutiar sections which remind me of classic MDM which is nice. Typically I'm not hugely into instrumentals, but I like this one a lot. Dem melodies starting at 01:26 / 02:20, yessir. That's giving me good, old school scandinavian metal vibes.

Stuff like this is really what I wanted from Cyhra. Experimenting, thinking outside the box, doing something different. LtM did this really well, then NHIH and TVT were straight up boring, cookie-cutter comemrcial metal shit. Give me these lads doing something fresh any day.

 

[DE4life]

Most recent played 10 for Saturday morning in the UK...

Bruce Dickinson - Power of the Sun (Heavy Metal, 2005)
Saint Deamon - Way Home (Power Metal, 2009)
In Flames - My Sweet Shadow (Melodic Metal, 2006)
Dragonforce - Fallen World (Power Metal, 2012)
3 Inches of Blood - Destroy the Orcs (Power Metal, 2002)
Itō Kanako - Hacking to the Gate (OST, 2011)
Kamelot - We Are Not Separate (Power Metal, 1997)
D12 - Words Are Weapons (Hip Hop, 2001)
Veiled in Scarlet - Cannibalistic Dream (Melodic Death Metal, 2022)
Edguy - Vain Glory Opera (Power Metal, 1998)

 

[Xpyro125]

My ten most recently played are

Sleep Token- Vore (Song is blackgaze-y, but the band is Modern Metalcore, 2023)
Alexisonfire- Conditional Love (Post-Hardcore/Shoegaze?, 2022)
Grayscale Season- Still Hurts (Modern Metalcore, 2023)
Hundredth- Youth (Shoegaze, 2017)
Thousand Eyes- Endless Nightmare (Melodic Death Metal, 2015)
Slowdive- Sugar for the Pill (Shoegaze, 2017)
ERRA- Alpha Seed (Metalcore, 2013)
Ada Rook- Gravity Weapon (Some sort of screamo noise electronic music, 2022)
Carrion Vael- Tithes of Forbearance (Melodic Death Metal/Technical Death Metal, 2022)
Dark Tranquillity- White Noise / Black Silence (Melodic Death Metal, 2002)

Way more newer stuff than what I normally listen to, but I guess that’s what it is at the moment. I usually hate modern metalcore, but Still Hurts is genuinely fantastic, with a gorgeous acoustic section playing simultaneously with a breakdown that actually works. The metalcore part sounds old hardcore-inspired metalcore rather than new chugging shit, and it’s really just the vocals that have a huge modern feel to it. The band’s from Gothenburg, so that makes it make sense to me.

 

[The Grayfox]

I really can't get into Sleep Token. They seem very overrated to me. I do quite enjoy ERRA though.

 

[Xpyro125]

It took about a year for me to fully get into Sleep Token— Even then, I think their debut album kinda sucks, and a few songs on Take Me Back to Eden made me nearly tune out of the album on first listen. It’s not nearly as metal overall as I’d like (And not just metalcore, they have enough basic core guitarwork for my liking), and I think how constructed the compositions feel can definitely turn some people off. Vore’s fantastic though, it’s far and away my favorite song by them, and I really hope they’ll make something else like it in the future. I’d love to give song recommendations in hopes that something would click, but I genuinely think that the band just isn’t for some people, and understandably so. Hypnosis is the only real metal/rock song on This Place Will Become Your Tomb, but I think it might just be their best album overall, and Two is a surprisingly natural-sounding EP. I know their rabid fanbase would tear the throats out of anyone who doesn’t give Eden 10/10, but I still think they’re just a really good band with a ton of potential to make something incredible in the future. Overrated for sure, as their discography suffers catastrophically from being so hit and miss, but they’re absolutely incredible to me when they do hit.

I fucking love old ERRA, genuinely some of the best metalcore I’ve heard despite not being super raw whatsoever. Aside from Gungrave, Idle Wild, and Slow Sour Bleed, I just fucking hate new ERRA, the magic just completely drained out after Alan Rigdon left/got kicked out (Neither side’ll go into details). I think Drift is still a good album, Luminesce is one of my favorite songs by them, but the magic is just gone, and I want to cave the skulls in of all the self-titled’s dick riders.

 

[The Grayfox]

Just listened to the new Beast in Black single, 'Power of the Beast.' I have to say I was a bit disappointed by it. It feels way too heavy on the synth, even by Beast in Black's standards. There were times in the song where the synth drowned out the guitars.

 

[DE4life]

The opening reminds me of modern Dragonforce, which isn't really a compliment, but at the same time I can deal with it in small doses. The song itself is mostly pop-metal sugar. I agree that it feels less heavy than their previous attempts at this, though - compare to Sweet True Lies, which is similarly poppy but feels much more powerful. I think the issue here is the mix. The keyboards are a bit too loud, and the vocals especially are sometimes struggling to get to the front. Strange as their production/mixing previously has been pretty much flawless.

Anyway, the solos are fun and the chorus is an earworm (albeit a ripoff of Every Time We Touch, lmao). It's the minimum you'd expect from BiB. I'd be okay with this as the silly song on the album, similar to One Night in Tokyo from Dark Connection, but I'd expect harder hitting tracks surrounding it.

 

[The Grayfox]

I just listened to it again. It's not terrible or anything, it just feels a little forced somehow. As you said, if it has harder hitting tracks surrounding it, that's fine. But I definitely don't want a full album of this personally. This may not end up on an album anyway I suppose. They keep touting it as a "stand alone single", which makes me think this isn't the start of promotion for a new full release. It feels like it's been years and years since they've released an album. We're coming up on three years, which really isn't that long considering, but it feels much longer to me. Somebody asked Anton at a show recently when they were putting out a new one and he said they were using 2024 to "prep it." Maybe next year then? I guess they're still coasting off of the success of Dark Connection.

 

[DE4life]

It's wormed its way into my brain, and now I've been playing it at various points throughout the day thanks bro. If there's one thing Beast in Black do extremely well it's craft catchy choruses. I can remember literally every chorus on Dark Connection, with Blade Runner, Highway to Mars and Moonlight Rendezvous being particular highlights. With that said, I've listened to the songs on Dark Connection countless times since the album came out, so I can pretty much recall the entirety of every song, never mind just the choruses. It was practically the only thing I listened to in the last couple of months of 2021 going into 2022.

I'm looking forward to their next album, but I don't hold high expectations, simply because it's extremely rare that a follow up to an album I loved is anywhere near the same level - for me personally, at least. I mean, just in recent times...

IF - SOAPF followed up by the joke that was SC
IF - ITM to Foregone (yes, I actually liked ITM)
Amaranthe - The Nexus followed up by Massive Addictive (not that MA is bad, just not as good)
Nightrage - Wolf to Man to Abyss Rising
Soilwork - Verkligheten to Övergivenheten
Arch Enemy - Will to Power to Deceivers (I know for a lot of people it's the other way around, but I really liked WtP and found Deceivers very mid)
Cyhra - Letters to Myself to NHIH (and then to the even shittier TVT)

I hope BiB and THE break the mould, but yeah, no expectations as it's rare a follow up to an album I really, really like sounds anywhere near as good. With dark Connection genuinely being a top ten all-timer album for me, maybe even top five, it would be very, very difficult for the next album to get close. Always have to live in hope though.

 

[The Grayfox]

Its interesting that we have some such polar opposite views on Beast in Black albums. Dark Connection is my least favorite of the three. I do like it, but not as much as the first two. There are songs on it that I really enjoy, namely Bella Donna and To the Last Drop of Blood, but then there are songs like Blade Runner and Hardcore that I find very mid. This probably has more to do with when I discovered the band, which was when the first album came out. Clearly Dark Connection has done a lot of good for the band in gaining new fans. It's probably a bit of how you are anticipating the next Beast album: I LOVE From Hell With Love and there was no way they were going to release an album that could live up to the hype for me. That's just how it is I guess.

 

[DE4life]

Well, I like the first two BiB albums a lot too. Dark Connection is my favourite, but that may just be because it's the first one I heard. Who knows, if I'd gotten into them with Berserker or From Hell with Love then one of those might be my favourite instead. Typically I think you tend to form a strong attachment to whichever album first gets you into a band, regardless of where in the discography it falls. I like Berserker in that it's more is a straight heavy/power metal album. You start to get some of the 80s influence in From Hell with Love, and the synths really become prominent in the music on DC. Personally I really love that sound and the whole dystopian/cyberpunk vibe - I'm just a sucker for that - but I can see people who preferred the first two albums not liking the direction they're going in. The new single suggests they're continuing on that path, but their insistence that it's a standalone track maybe hints that we shouldn't expect that to be the definitive road they're taking. I guess we'll see.

 

[The Grayfox]

Whatever they do, I'm sure it will be good at least. It may not be my cup of tea, but I can't imagine them putting out an album that is just not good. I assumed that the cyberpunk theme was going to be a one off theme for the album and then they would move on to something else, but we'll see. The theme doesn't really play into why I feel like Dark Connection is a weaker album than the previous two though. I think the first two have stronger songs. Obviously the synth has always been there, it's a huge part of what gives them their sound, it just feels like with Dark Connection, its more at the forefront. And even more so with Power of the Beast. I have to remind myself that it is a single and video and it doesn't necessarily indicate that its what the next album will sound like. Also I'll be looking forward to what they cover as bonus tracks this time around. They've been using Survivor's "Burning Heart" as their outro on tour and I'm wondering if that is a possibility. If so, they'll absolutely kill it with that one.

 

[mindd]

speaking of pm stuff, new Dream Evil

 

[DE4life]

Always good to hear new Dream Evil. They are one of the first bands, alongside Freedom Call, Edguy, Avantasia, Rhapsody (of Fire) and Dragonforce, who really got me into the PM genre as an impressionable youth. Also an excellent live act and I've seen them a couple of times, at a smaller venue in London and also at the Bloodstock 2007 festival. They were great both times, but the smaller venue gig was especially awesome as they played a ton of older songs. Their first two albums (Dragonslayer and Evilized) are still my favourites by far. Book of Heavy Metal is also really good - kind of crazy that they literally released three albums in three years.

United in 2006 was good, but I didn't like it quite as much as previous albums. It does have probably my second favourite DE song on it, though, Blind Evil. Favourite track will always be In Flames You Burn - it's the first song I heard from them and remains my favourite. There's a bit of a clue in the title as to how I found out about the band, too. I was searching for In Flames on some old filesharing service and this song came up. Sounded cool so I downloaded it - loved it, proceeded to buy Dragonslayer immediately. Cool story bro etc.

After four albums in five years, essentially, they then didn't realise another album until 2010, 'In the Night'. This one didn't quite work for me. There's a trio of songs in the middle that I think are solid - On the Wind, The Ballad and In the Fires of the Sun - but otherwise not an album I was hugely enamoured with. I remember nothing about their 2017 album Six, I have no idea if I ever listened to it. 16 songs is a lot, though, and always a bit of a red flag for me. On the other hand, it was seven years between releases, so maybe they just had a lot of creative ideas in that period and just hadn't had time to go to the studio. Idk. I should revisit this one.

Now another seven years, and a new album. They went from releasing an album practically every year to once every seven years, That sucks. On the other hand, I don't know how feasible it is to continually release great music every one or two years as the same band.

Now, as far as the new song is concerned - it's good, I like it. Opening is heavily inspired by 'The Chosen Ones' from Dragonslayer, but that's cool - it's a brilliant song. This sounds more like the Dream Evil I enjoyed back in the day. They seemingly had another single come out a month ago that I missed:



Also nice, sounds like it could have come off The Book of Heavy Metal. Similar sound to Mystic Prophecy's Hellriot, albeit not quite as dense in terms of production. Respect to Niklas Isfeldt, who still sounds the same as he did 20 years ago. He's got a unique voice for the genre and it's good to know his vocals are still holding up well.

Shout out to two of the older classics to balance the newer releases:

In Flames You Burn



Blind Evil

 

[The Grayfox]

I'm not a huge Dream Evil fan. I liked The Book of Heavy Metal back when though. If there's one thing this band does extremely well it is heavy, chuggy guitars. And it's in full force here. They have a lot of cringey lyrics in their songs. Just the lyrics from The Book of Heavy Metal (title track) alone... I mean, they never cease to make me laugh. Still an awesome song and album though. The line-up on that album is insane. Fredrik Nordstrom, Gus G. and Snowy Shaw? Damn.

 

[DE4life]

Dream Evil's first two albums were fairly straightforward heavy power metal, but since TBoHM they've been heavily leaning towards being a heavy metal parody band, albeit with some genuinely great songs. The Ballad always makes me laugh for just how purposefully ridiculous the lyrics are.

 

[ThePhobiac]

DE 4 Life