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

[Moonshield_]

If you like melodic/epic black metal, here is the new album just released by my project (vocals not by me) Eminentia Tenebris :

 

[miniroch]

HsB with their latest release reminds me of their Antigone days. Some tracks, bar the vocals, easily could make it to late 90's MDM albums. Don't miss out on that one, easily one of the best albums of the year in that near-MDM category.

 

[DE4life]

Thanks for the heads up. What a great album. I can definitely hear the Antigone vibe. Production has a wide but still crushing sound. Music is the heavier side of European metal core but has a strong groove element throughout. You obviously know what you're getting lyrics-wise with HSB. Vocals sound as solid as ever. Really cool that they have a cover of KsE's Numbered Days on here, too. Probably my favourite Killswitch track. Even cooler that they got Jesse to do the clean vocals. Not many covers where the original vocalist is on the track! Now granted I still prefer the original song by some distance, but this is a solid alternative take. Very much in HSB style.

Antigone takes me back. I bought that album when I was still getting into extreme metal. I was in the States at the time visiting an ex, saw it in a store and picked it up purely because the cover and song titles looked cool. I guess the kids would say I picked it up purely on vibes. I didn't know anything about HSB at the time. I remember sitting down that evening and listening to the album from start to finish, reading along with the lyrics in the booklet. The classic method of listening to an album. By the final song I had goosebumps. It's an album that really hit me emotionally. The juxtaposition of the absolutely crushing, visceral standard tracks and the beautiful, melancholy instrumentals was just perfect.

Unfortunately, HSB albums after that never hit me the same way. Not even close. Heimat doesn't either, but it's still a solid album. Easily the best stuff I've heard from them since Antigone.

 

[DE4life]

Probably my favourite from the album. Goddamn this is a fantastic track.

 

[The Grayfox]

HSB is always a pleasure to listen to. This is no exception. Love the Numbered Days cover. When they covered BG's Valhalla, they got Hansi to do the cleans on that one too and it turned out really nice.

 

[Xpyro125]

I think I can finally handle Metalia and Cyberia being as disastrous as they are (Don’t listen to those albums, there are maybe five good songs from them and it’s a double album), since Ryo’s back in Blood Stain Child. I was really sad when I found out he left the band since he’s one of my favorite MDM vocalists, so this is awesome.

Also, I decided to relisten to Augment by Erra since their new single, Echo Sonata harkens back to Drift, one of their actually good albums. Genuinely a 10/10 album for me, and all of the people who say that their self-titled is better or even that good are wrong. Fuck modern metalcore, this was the last period of metalcore when it was actually good imo.

 

[DE4life]

I don't mind metalcore from the early 2000s as a lot of it has a distinctive MDM influence, but when it moved more into just being dem heavy riffs/breakdowns/chugging the genre lost me. Still a few bands doing it right, but most don't do it for me.

 

[DE4life]

Let's set my huge playlist to random and see what 11 tracks are selected.

Limp Bizkit - Rollin (Nu Metal, 2000) - lol
Colonization Amiga OST (VG OST, 1994) - I lost so many hours to this game, the music is an instant mood lifter
In Flames - Food for the Gods (MDM, 1997)
Mystic Prophecy - Burning Bridges (Power Metal, 2004)
Metallica - The Four Horsemen (Heavy Metal, 1983) - defo my fav Metallica track
Trivium - Fugue (Metalcore, 2003)
Beast in Black - Blade Runner (Power Metal, 2021)
Night in Gales - Winterspawn (MDM, 2020) - I love this song, but I can't get over how shamelessly it rips off Dead Eternity at 01:35, lmao
Amber - This is Your Night (Pop, 1996) - idk, it's a classic, deal with it
Alkaline Trio - Stupid Kid (Punk Rock, 2001)
Namida (Kokoro Abaite) - Zebraqueen no Theme (J-Pop, 2010) - I have no idea where or why I heard this, but it's simultaneously the best and worst thing ever.

 

[Xpyro125]

I don't mind metalcore from the early 2000s as a lot of it has a distinctive MDM influence, but when it moved more into just being dem heavy riffs/breakdowns/chugging the genre lost me. Still a few bands doing it right, but most don't do it for me.

Yeah, I agree completely there. Some 2010s metalcore (Periphery, old ERRA, etc.) is still good to me, but a lot of it gets fucked by being toothless, having too much emphasis on cleans, or having limp production. Modern core is pretty much the bane of my existence musically, and it’s seen even the best of metalcore bands (Including those two above) become fucking dogshit. Foregone is genuinely better modern core than most albums in the subgenre, and that doesn’t sit right with me at all.

Also, love seeing FFTG up there, even in spite of MDM coming and going from my regular listening, that song is still in it. I don’t know why I only got into it in recent years, but it’s an absolute classic.

 

[miniroch]

Not their greatest effort, but always good to hear something new from those lads.

 

[Cronopio]

Those cats are actually quite good. And persistent.

 

[Xpyro125]

I was too distraught to say anything about it yesterday, but Brent Hinds was killed in a motorcycle accident Wednesday night, BMW didn’t yield at an intersection. I don’t really know if anyone else here is a Mastodon fan or not, but it’s important stuff and In Flames had given their condolences pretty much immediately once the news broke.

I was still trying to process his split from the band and everything going on with him personally, this shit’s just unthinkable. While Jesper’s my favorite guitarist and was the most influential for me, Brent was just behind him for me. The mix of real southern country/folk and actual psychedelic prog metal really shone in a sea of standard guitarwork, and along with everyone else’s contributions within the band, they were seriously special to me. He was also one of the best guitar soloists out there, Roots Remain and Gigantium (for all of my issues with H&G) have two of the very best solos of all time to me.

Shit’s fucking unreal right now, and I feel so bad for all the guys in the band. Brann’s shared old photos of them, João (Live keyboardist) put out a really poignant message, and Ben (Former live guitarist for a bit recently) had a tribute to Pendulous Skin. I can’t imagine what it’s been like for all of them.

 

[ThePhobiac]

I remember seeing the video for "Iron Tusk" on Headbanger's Ball in 2004 and both the music and the image of the band stood out. That's still my favorite Mastodon song. Can't say I've kept up with them since, but very sad either way.