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

[DE4life]

Come to think of it, @eochaid from memory you're a fan of Michael Kiske, and five of the ten tracks on the album have him as lead vocalist. Not sure if you've heard him in RR, but I think the songs with him as lead vocalist are all pretty good.

 

[eochaid]

Probably the best heavy metal male singer.

 

[Cronopio]

Yes!

 

[DE4life]

Probably the best heavy metal male singer.

Really weird when he went through that period of not wanting to be attached to metal as a genre in any shape or form. Even refused to be credited with his real name on the first Avantasia albums (although at least he agreed to perform on them). Glad he got over that, although it took him a while.

 

[eochaid]

In the old Bruce Dickinson fanpage there was a funny blogpost about Mikael not wanting to be associated to metal. Sadly it's been lost.

 

[DE4life]

I'm wondering why he did that - was it because he felt there was some kind of stigma attached to the genre? Bad interactions with fans? Or just being pretentious? I'm sure he's not the only one who's done this, but it is one of the more publicised estrangements from the genre. It always tends to end the same way, too, with those people coming back to the genre because - as it turned out - they were just really suited for that genre or style and not so much for others.

 

[eochaid]

At some point, he started saying that he was never into metal and did not want to be associated with it.

 

[The Grayfox]

Probably the best heavy metal male singer.

I'm going to pretend I didn't see this.

 

[DE4life]

He obviously meant with the exception of our favourite son, Anders "Unique Voice" Friden.

 

[The Grayfox]

Those RR songs are actually pretty decent. Kiske sounds good on them. I just hate Helloween

 

[DE4life]

I think I actually prefer Kiske to Kotipelto on the RR tracks. I think his voice suits the slower tempo of most of the songs more.

But yeah, unfortunately New Era was the peak for Revolution Renaissance and, imo anyway, for Tolkki post-Stratovarius.

 

[eochaid]

I'm going to pretend I didn't see this.

Then I'm going to pretend that I didn't write it.

 

[The Grayfox]

Yeah, I checked out some of the other stuff and it's not very good.

 

[DE4life]

New Arch Enemy track:



Not what I was expecting. It's not really got any commercial hooks, but at the same time it isn't really very interesting for a heavier song.

I guess it's alright, but you just get this overwhelming sense from AE songs these days that anything that isn't generic riffing has been done before, and done better, elsewhere in their back catalogue. Not to dissimilar to IF in that regard. IF just don't have attractive blue-haired woman as their singer, so no simp army for them.

 

[Xpyro125]

For an AE song, it’s actually not bad. I like the blackened sound of the first riff, and everything else is fine. I like how many change-ups there are, but I just get a massive feeling of “yeah, Arch Enemy just isn’t my thing” overall— I’ve only really fallen in love with a handful of their songs. It’s a hell of a lot more interesting than 80% of Deceivers, but I don’t think I’d ever buy this. I think I respect it more than I enjoy it.

 

[DE4life]

I respect that it isn't commercial bullshit. They could easily go down that route - especially considering the popularity Alissa brings them and the fact she can actually sing - but fair play to AE, they've stayed far more within the metal sphere than the likes of In Flames. I agree that it isn't really something that hugely interests me either, though. I am getting the feeling Will to Power was a bit of a one off in that regard.

 

[mindd]

I was never much of a fan of Alissa-era AE. While she's undeniably a good singer, the material just isn't that interesting and her clean vocal additions in new songs are kinda cheesy. My favorite AE album is still Burning Bridges, for some reason it just clicked for me. Albums with Angela are mostly okay, some good stuff, some bad stuff, lots of filler.

The new song is okay, sounds like Amott. Probably better than Will to Power and Deceivers.

 

[The Grayfox]

I listened to this yesterday. Although I didn’t find it to be very interesting, I do like that it has a classic Arch Enemy feel to it.

 

[mindd]

Okay, I know there isn't many Opeth enjoyers here, and I wasn't enjoying Opeth much either for the past 13 years, but still...

For those who don't know - Opeth was a Swedish death prog metal thing, well, until 2011, when they released Heritage, on which they abandoned the death and metal parts of the equation. And since then, absolutely no growling vocals, not much heaviness, not much dissonance and darkness in their sound, and a whole lot of 70s inspired prog rock noodliness.
Honestly, the only song from their last few albums that I've honestly enjoyed was Sorceress, and that's only because it reminded me of Alice in Chains of all things, and still I skip its intro half the time I want to listen to it.

Anyway, they've announced a new album and released a new single and, somehow, the growls have returned, 16 years after they were last heard, lol. The song sounds like a mix of newer Opeth stuff like In Cauda Venenum and the last moments of the older Opeth on Watershed.
I would still prefer more straightforward awesome riffs, less meandering melodies and less prog rock noodliness, and I don't like In Cauda Venenum style clean vocals production and melodies, but well, at least it's a step in the right direction, even if not on the level of Still Life, Blackwater Park or Ghost Reveries. We'll see what the actual album brings.

 

[The Grayfox]

I think this is a good first single. It’s a nice blend of new and old. It’s really, really nice to hear Mikael growling after like 15 years. Honestly I haven’t even bothered listening to much Opeth in that time because I found the music quite boring. This is pretty refreshing. We’ll see if the rest of the album is the same.