ThePhobiac
be at ease
Heading to Sweden in a few weeks, hoping that I don't run into a crush of Americans trying to get in. "I'll only be here for a few days, I swear" I protest as immigration officers wrestle me to the ground.
Non-gay bro thread a.k.a. Random offtopic stuff.
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The Grayfox
#MusicTheoryBro
Donald Trump is a complete moron, there's no other way to say it. Even if I live in one of the most liberal parts of the entire country, during election season, you'll still see a few Trump signs here and there. You'll see them on cars, in front of houses, on people's hats. They're proud of their ignorance.
Anyway, fuck that idiot. Have you guys heard the Japanese bonus tracks from the Passenger album?
Anyway, fuck that idiot. Have you guys heard the Japanese bonus tracks from the Passenger album?
Yeah I think they're both pretty good. Clowns is actually one of my favourite Passenger tracks in general.
The Grayfox
#MusicTheoryBro
According to the timestamps on my external HDD files I got Clowns and Drowning City roughly a year after I acquired the normal album. No idea where from though. Possibly Everdying, if it was still up in early 2006? Otherwise it would have been a random website. I remember Metal Observer used to have links to songs that bands had available for free - could have been there that I found them. I can't imagine I would have randomly downloaded those songs from a P2P, but can't rule it out either.
Xpyro125
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Love both of those songs— Especially Clowns. I know there used to be a download link I think if you emailed the guy who had them, but that was obviously back when he was active. At least that’s what I remember, which may not even be true. I’ve personally always wondered if the volume dip in Drowning City is intentional or not, but it’s fine either way.
Moonshield_
Member
Dark Tranquillity was absolutely wonderful tonight in Paris, Bataclan.
Big setlist as they were headlining.
Our Disconnect and Wayward Eyes sound amazing live
The other bands were good to, especially Wolfheart. I'm not very much into Moonspell but it was a nice moment though.
Big setlist as they were headlining.
Our Disconnect and Wayward Eyes sound amazing live
The other bands were good to, especially Wolfheart. I'm not very much into Moonspell but it was a nice moment though.
Attachments
Killswitch Engage with a new single after 5 years or so. Pretty nice song, I like it, but the chorus guitar melody makes me immediately think of My Sweet Shadow
The Grayfox
#MusicTheoryBro
This is a strong single. That chorus is very nice. Jesse is an excellent vocalist and songwriter and he sounds reinvigorated here. It's nothing groundbreaking but Killswitch Engage is one of those bands I'm totally ok with not experimenting. It's comforting somehow.
Jesse improved so much since he rejoined the band. I read an interview a while ago about the making of this new upcoming album and apparently it took a bunch of rewriting/rerecording and just a lot of effort in general.
I agree with you, I don't mind that they aren't changing the formula much and they always maintain a set level of quality, they will never put out something embarrassingly bad.
Not too crazy about the sterile razor-sharp sound, their mid-era wall of sound albums are sonically my favorite by far, As Daylight Dies in particular.
I agree with you, I don't mind that they aren't changing the formula much and they always maintain a set level of quality, they will never put out something embarrassingly bad.
Not too crazy about the sterile razor-sharp sound, their mid-era wall of sound albums are sonically my favorite by far, As Daylight Dies in particular.
The Grayfox
#MusicTheoryBro
Something about this song feels like old school Killswitch Engage, with Jesse sounding more modern. But the song itself has a nice old feel to it to me. It doesn't feel phoned in. While I do enjoy the Howard Jones era, Jesse will always be my guy. There's a rawness to his voice that can't be matched. For me, Alive or Just Breathing will go down as the quintessential metalcore album.
Yeah that's a pretty nice single. Nothing majorly new but still a solid metalcore track.
I originally got into KSE via Howard - Rose of Sharyn was the first track I heard from them and I enjoyed The End of Heartache (songs from this album were played a lot at the metal clubs I frequented back then). As Daylight Dies is solid too (This is Absolution is one of my favourite KSE tracks). Overall though I'd say Alive or Just Breathing is my most listened to Killswitch album. Jesse's vocals across the album are just incredibly visceral. Numbered Days is my overall #1 KSE track, and Life to Lifeless is fantastic as well. From what I remember reading, Jesse's voicebox got kind of fucked up from that album and subsequent tour though. Hardly a surprise as there isn't really any technique there - just total screaming. I didn't really follow KSE after 2006, so I don't know much about them after that.
I originally got into KSE via Howard - Rose of Sharyn was the first track I heard from them and I enjoyed The End of Heartache (songs from this album were played a lot at the metal clubs I frequented back then). As Daylight Dies is solid too (This is Absolution is one of my favourite KSE tracks). Overall though I'd say Alive or Just Breathing is my most listened to Killswitch album. Jesse's vocals across the album are just incredibly visceral. Numbered Days is my overall #1 KSE track, and Life to Lifeless is fantastic as well. From what I remember reading, Jesse's voicebox got kind of fucked up from that album and subsequent tour though. Hardly a surprise as there isn't really any technique there - just total screaming. I didn't really follow KSE after 2006, so I don't know much about them after that.
Fellowship's new album, The Skies Above Eternity, has dropped (official release day is tomorrow). The Saberlight Chronicles was one of those albums that I just loved from start to finish, and in many ways it seemed to transcend its genre as pretty much everyone I showed it to seemed to genuinely enjoy the music. Even a lot of the people on here who laugh at my flower power metal tendencies. It's probably a top 5 of all time album for me, which meant it was going to be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for the follow up to be better.
And yeah, it doesn't quite reach the heights of TSC in my eyes. That's not to say it's a bad album, it absolutely isn't, but it doesn't quite capture the same magic that was on their debut. I'd genuinely rate TSC a 10/10, whereas TSAE is an 8 or possibly 8.5/10 - still very good and in isolation a fantastic album. My complaints are only that it isn't quite as perfect as their debut, but hey, that's a high bar and I never expected them to go to that level again. Albums like that are a moment in time and can never be recaptured - even if they'd followed the exact same structures the law of dimishing returns would mean that it still wouldn't rank as high.
The band spoke about this album being 'darker' and the artwork certainly is, but I wouldn't say that 'darker' is the right way to describe the music. Lyrically, maybe, but musically it's just more straightforward metal than the last album. Less of the D&D, ultra cheese and more metal riffing. That's not to say there isn't cheese, because it's still there in abundance - just not as much.
Dawnbreaker was released as the first single and I absolutely love that one - a 10/10 which I've listened to countless times already and I'm still not tired of it. Victim is another that I've spun a lot. Hold Your Hearts Up (Again) is great and sounds like it could be placed right on the previous album with no problem. The rest are in the 7.5-8.5/10 range - perfectly solid, and I'll listen to all of them quite often I think. A New Hope really threw me as the opening sounds like some kind of Christmas jingle, lmao, even though the song has nothing to do with Christmas. It's a cool song but the Christmas-style melody is just... bizarre,. Anyway, it's a pretty short album with only 8 full songs coming in at around 40 minutes, but I'm fine with that considering all of the songs are good quality.
In regards to victim...
It might just be me, but the opening melodies remind me a lot of NHIH Cyhra. Not just the melodies, but even the guitar tone. Even the vocals aren't a million miles away from how Jake sounds, either. The main difference is that post-2017 Cyhra can't really craft a decent song after some initial solid melodic riffs, whereas Fellowship can. In some ways a song like Victim is kind of how I think Jake wants his version of Cyhra to sound - he's just not a good enough songwriter to pull it off. I don't know. @Xpyro125 you're our Cyhra expert, so tell me if I'm just talking out of my ass.
And yeah, it doesn't quite reach the heights of TSC in my eyes. That's not to say it's a bad album, it absolutely isn't, but it doesn't quite capture the same magic that was on their debut. I'd genuinely rate TSC a 10/10, whereas TSAE is an 8 or possibly 8.5/10 - still very good and in isolation a fantastic album. My complaints are only that it isn't quite as perfect as their debut, but hey, that's a high bar and I never expected them to go to that level again. Albums like that are a moment in time and can never be recaptured - even if they'd followed the exact same structures the law of dimishing returns would mean that it still wouldn't rank as high.
The band spoke about this album being 'darker' and the artwork certainly is, but I wouldn't say that 'darker' is the right way to describe the music. Lyrically, maybe, but musically it's just more straightforward metal than the last album. Less of the D&D, ultra cheese and more metal riffing. That's not to say there isn't cheese, because it's still there in abundance - just not as much.
Dawnbreaker was released as the first single and I absolutely love that one - a 10/10 which I've listened to countless times already and I'm still not tired of it. Victim is another that I've spun a lot. Hold Your Hearts Up (Again) is great and sounds like it could be placed right on the previous album with no problem. The rest are in the 7.5-8.5/10 range - perfectly solid, and I'll listen to all of them quite often I think. A New Hope really threw me as the opening sounds like some kind of Christmas jingle, lmao, even though the song has nothing to do with Christmas. It's a cool song but the Christmas-style melody is just... bizarre,. Anyway, it's a pretty short album with only 8 full songs coming in at around 40 minutes, but I'm fine with that considering all of the songs are good quality.
In regards to victim...
It might just be me, but the opening melodies remind me a lot of NHIH Cyhra. Not just the melodies, but even the guitar tone. Even the vocals aren't a million miles away from how Jake sounds, either. The main difference is that post-2017 Cyhra can't really craft a decent song after some initial solid melodic riffs, whereas Fellowship can. In some ways a song like Victim is kind of how I think Jake wants his version of Cyhra to sound - he's just not a good enough songwriter to pull it off. I don't know. @Xpyro125 you're our Cyhra expert, so tell me if I'm just talking out of my ass.
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Xpyro125
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I’ll be real with you, aside from the vocal tone being barely too different from Jake’s, if you sent me this as an mp3 or wav file and said it was Cyhra, I’d believe you until the solo— Only because I think Jake is too stuck on making arena rock with power metal elements rather than making power metal with arena rock elements as shown here. Honestly though, this song is too NHIH for me. I don’t care for it aside from the solo, which at least does feel like something Euge genuinely could write if Jake let him off his leash. I think Euge is a talented guitarist, but he very much follows the vision of what the band ‘leader’ wants, which I do respect from a purely professional standpoint. The art suffers, but eh.
I won’t lie, if you give me the news that Cyhra’s releasing a new album soon at any point, I will be distraught. I just don’t have any hope that the band will release something I enjoy, and man am I somehow tired of being the resident Cyhra fan in all the groups I’m in who know of their existence. I’m in favor of someone else suffering that fate.
Xpyro125
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I never actually got into KSE save for mildly enjoying a couple newer songs (The only one I remember is The Signal Fire, that one is genuinely pretty good), and I know I probably should, but I’m not feeling this song whatsoever. I do like the melodies in the chorus though— At least when they’re in My Sweet Shadow, you hit the nail on the fucking head there. I don’t think they stole it or anything, don’t get me wrong, it sounds classic metalcore as fuck, but it’s so fucking weak both in the tone and in the mix here. I don’t want to be overly negative or ruin your guys’ enjoyment of it, like what you like, that’s awesome, genuinely. I just don’t hear what you guys are hearing, and I guess in fairness to everyone, I don’t have the same familiarity with their older material.
The Grayfox
#MusicTheoryBro
For me, it's really about the beauty in it's simplicity. Killswitch Engage's early albums aren't technical. They're not show-offy. They're just simple, raw and visceral and that's why I like them. This single reminds me of those early albums. Early 2000's metalcore is so much different to what it became later on. At least, the spirit of it. It was hardcore/punk kids who could play their instruments a bit better than your average punk rocker. Early Killswitch, Converge, Earth Crisis, Shadows Fall, even the first two Avenged Sevenfold records, that's good shit.
I'm glad I'm not the only one hears that NHIH vibe! The thing is, I did like a lot of the melodic leads on NHIH, it was just that each time the rest of the song rarely held up its end of the bargain. A track would start off sounding pretty cool or interesting, then inevitably degenerate into generic patterns which any new musician could put together. I like Victim a lot, and if I had to put my finger on exactly why (compared to a typical NHIH song) I'd say it's because Matt's vocals are just superior to Jake's - both in delivery and structure (plus, as noted, the solo is great). Because Cyhra doesn't really have a genre, it's tough to place how Jake's vocals should sound. Sometimes they veer into power metal territory, other times just straight melodic metal and other times more hard rock. On Letters to Myself this tended to happen across individual songs (Here to Save You is very much a PM track, Black Wings is more gothic metal inspired, Karma is basically Colony/Clayman style MDM with clean vocals), whereas on NHIH and TVT those influences can be spread across the same songs - but also in general everything after LtM lacks variety. They were far more experimental on the first album and that's what made it cool, even if it was obvious the band did not have a clear idea of what their identity was at the time. Frustratingly I don't think they've ever really defined what they are, they've just become more boring.
Fellowship know the genre they're in and the audience they are appealing to, so I think it's easier for them to structure and hone in on what they should be doing. Their new album is quite different from the debut (zero tracks on that one which sound like Cyhra in any way) but it's still identifiable as power metal and makes sure to hit the key beats that are needed to ensure fans aren't disappointed. Cyhra, not really having a genre, have no specific beats to hit and as a result end up sounding very generic. You can get away with it on an album like LtM where you're experimenting, because that's interesting, especially with the talents involved, but you can't really get away with it on albums where you're trying to present a consistent sound. You need something to work with beyond just basic melodic metal/hard rock template with various other influences scattered in briefly.
For what it's worth, Victim isn't really representative of the album as a whole. There isn't any other song that made me think of Cyhra. World End Slowly is probably a better representation, and my second favourite behind Dawnbreaker. Quite a poppy song (it's almost like Disney metal, honestly) but hey, I like what I like.
As far as Cyhra releasing a new album... I'll be interested purely because of Jesper's involvement, but much like with IF these days, go in with extremely low expectations. There's always the chance of another LtM, theoretically, as long as Jesper's involved - much like theoretically there's a chance of another SOAPF as long as Anders and Bjorn are involved, and if Benson was ditched - but I don't expect anything memorable from them at this point.
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Early metalcore definitely had something cool about it. The genre became very sterilized as time went on, I think simply because there isn't that far you can go with the general musical structure, but those early albums are the best representation of what the genre is meant to be, and why it gained popularity. A lot of those bands took influence from the Gothenberg scene and fused it with heavier elements in a way that was unique at the time. Obviously it became derivitive when a host of clones appeared on the scene, but it started strong and was the starting point for a lot of people in the same way Metallica, Maiden and Megadeth were for kids of the 70's and 80's.
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