Hey thanks for that. Arkona is certainly and interesting band. Folk metal is not completely my thing, but I feel with that sub-sub genre and others, help make metal one of the most diverse genres out there.

Instrumentation is like... Soilwork-very-lite. Sounds like BG, but kind of industrial? Strid's vocals are more prominent than the BG guy's, though.

I think that was me? Would've been a few months back, though. Yeah, great cd - A few of the songs were pretty forgettable, which was a shame (Simplicity Demand, Lost Reality, Obscure Indiscretion weren't very interesting). Still damn grabbing though.

Eh, I am not really digging coldseed. I love Blind Guardian and Soilwork but I don't know, to me it sounds like typical metal that isn't very interesting. Maybe I just need to listen to it more.

If you want to listen to them, they have a Profile on myspace

What's everyone's take on raw production? I know that in black metal it is considered 'tr00' and cold to have raw production, however I personally find it unappealing. Especially if it's intentionally done, I'm put off by it.

I have slowly gotten used to raw production such as Death - Scream Bloody Gore. That took me a long while to get past the production and to actually hear the songs. It is quite raw, however I feel it could sound much better if it was done in better quality. I remember hearing Zombie Ritual on the Live in L.A. DVD and it sounded phenominal. Human has muddy production which turns me off as well. The instrumentation and articulation just becomes lost to me.

Yay to raw/muddy production? Or Yay to crystal clear production?

Crystal clear, mos def. I can't stand the sound nor the reasoning behind raw recordings - How the hell does it matter if your songs are "tr00 and ag4in5t t3h m4instr33m 3vil" if they sound fucking horrible? If you're a professional, talented musician and you have access to half-decent production, then why fuck everything up in the interests of "TRUE NORDIC GRIMNESS"?

Seems that the metal elite can be just as fucking stupid as kids who listen to nothing but Dragonforce and Slipkorn of a Down Against The Lincoln Funeral.

Man an awful lot of the older albums were done with a very, very small budget though, at that time I don't think "necro yadda yadda" was even taken into account, they just wanted to record music. But doing like, really crap recording in this day and age is kind of pointless. Myself I don't mind either, to be honest I prefer when a sound has a bit of character to it, but not horrible distortion or the like of that.

I'd rather hear a professionally produced album than a garage demo tape on CD, yes. Refusing to take advantage of the technology at your disposal is like some kvlt perversion of "death before dishonor," and I don't buy into that.

I'm fine with old stuff sounding crap (first Ulver albums, for instance), but when a band shuns proper recording equipment for reasons I've previously stated, I can't help but get pissed off.

Ah yeah as in "so necro we use a 4-track though we have the funds to record in a kickass studio, couldn't agree more! Having said that, on one (actually probably all!) of the Burzum albums the 2 bass drums are completely out of tune, good album but that drives me insane, I mean, poor production is one thing, but for fucks sake match the pitches of the bass drums, it sounds like a fucking train or something.

STFU. :P I have had the mp3s for the longest time. I'm not a poseur who does nothing but leech all day, and I actually support the bands I love.

A store owner has this album on my list, he says he'd try to find it and call me as soon as he did. He's found some great stuff for me that way but that one (and some others) seem to give him problems... I'm tired of waiting, but last time I said that and bought it from elsewhere (at a high price), the week later his store finally had the album, at a much lower price. *grumbles* Murphy's Law for you...

Bah, that's typical Beotian nonsense. :P Sometimes it's true, some bands, especially in necro-kvlt black metal, have genuinely shitty production.

But in the case of black metal, a raw production is not necessarily a bad production. Take, for example, A Blaze in the Northern Sky. Raw as fuck, but perfect. We're talking about black fucking metal, here: the aural embodiment of nastiness, ugliness, evil, all the worst aspects of humanity. Why would you want a slick polished production for that? It wouldn't fit - it'd be like painting the depiction of death, coldness and evil with pretty pastel colours.
In cases like A Blaze..., Black Metal, or Under the Sign of the Black Mark, or Filosofem, the sound is gritty, raw and unpolished, but it's still crystal-clear and very sharp. You can hear the instruments perfectly well. Moreover, it fits with the atmosphere attempted at being conveyed (maybe less so in Venom's case, since they were genuinely limited by budget - still, the results speak for themselves. Venom shouldn't sound like Def Leppard).

Having seen many bedroom/Myspace "black metal" bands drift by as the M-A admin, I can tell you that there is indeed such a thing as completely, horribly unlistenable Fisherprice-like production. But that's no reason to disregard the idea altogether. And I'm certainly not a big black metal fan, the raw black metal bands I like are a mere handful.

Edit: Attached here is a review I wrote, about two years ago, on A Blaze in the Northern Sky. I never published this review (for various reasons), but I actually wrote it as a sample review to submit for a reviewing freelance job at ... IGN Music. (I'm not kidding!) Long story short, the job offer was cancelled, but anyway, as you can see from the intro and the formatting (parental content Yes/No, hahaha) the review was targeted at a general readership, not necessarily specialised in metal. I'm including it here because my view on the raw production is summed up nicely in there, and I thought it could be relevant.

I've been listening to latest Slavland "Tarcza Swaroga" today, and its fucking great. Exactly the kind of folk / black metal crossovers I love.

And o ok Morrigan ;_;

Haha, I guess I killed the thread huh. :P

Can you post mp3s of this Slavland, please?

If given the chance, I would gladly buy the albums of my favorite bands. But metal bands (especially European) aren't that popular in the Philippine market. So you can own them only by importing or if lucky, a local reprint of the album (points to CoF album).

And I still haven't downloaded that thing niki posted. :( stupid dialup

http://www.sendspace.com/file/yar46o

They rock ~

That'd actually be a pretty cool painting. The subject matter would seem more disturbing with the contrast of colors.

If the production can be clear enough for various instruments to get through, then that's great. I just don't like a muddy mess of things that make everything incomphrensible.

I recently got myself the two albums, Dragonslayer and Book of heavy Metal and they are awesome.
Pretty old schoo Metal, imho. While the lyrics themselves arent much to write home about, the music itself is awesome and they really did grow from Dragonslayer to Book of heavy metal, their range quite impressive and their Leadsinger being absolutely capable and having a unique voice.

Favorite songs
DRAGONSLAYER
Chasing The Dragon
Kingdom Of The Damned
The Prophecy
The Chosen Ones
Losing You
Hail To The King

Book of Heavy Metal
The Book Of Heavy Metal (March Of The Metallians)
Into The Moonlight
Crusaders' Anthem
Chosen Twice
Unbreakable Chain

While I like less songs of their last album its undeniable that those eclipse the Dragonslayer songs individually easily.

Ah, the metal thread. But I notice it's usually more black/euro metal dominated for the most part.

I'm into prog metal for the mostly, Dream Theater, Symphony X, and basically any offshoot/related bands, side projects, etc. Besides that, thrash metal and some power metal I used to listen to alot.

Though I dislike Dragonforce, and ALOT of people I know LOVE them. They seem to be a band that people are really divided on.

An album I listened to recently that I love is Ayreon's The Human Equation. Also been getting into Pain of Salvation and Riverside lately.

On another note, I was on wikipedia earlier today, and I thought the number of defined genres of metal they had was ridiculous. Though I was surprised that punk had many more subdivisions than metal, ranging from standard (pop punk) to absurd (Punk against Communism) to ? (Taqwacore). Though I could pretty much identify some of the genres of metal, some seemed absudly unnessecary.

This seems like such an unessacary genre.

It's because black/euro metal shits all over progressive metal. I despise every progressive band you listed, but coincedentally i LOVE LOVE Dragonforce.

Drone Doom is a stupid name for a genre, sure, but alot of the bands that fit into that genre like Sun O))) and Khanate are amazing and i love them.


Punk doesn't have many legitmate sub genres as Metal does, it just has far more many people mis-construing what Punk music is and applying it to whatever shitty music they play and saying it is a form of punk when it isn't technically by any standards.


Also what does everyone think of these bands?

Anata
35007 ( Dutch Stoner Metal ala St.Vitus )
Asmegin
Sabbat ( japanese Thrash and on occasions Black)
Agalloch
Sigh
EYEHATEGOD

To each his own and all, musical taste is subjective. And I know you know your music very well.

I noticed in the exposure club thread alot of people were into Opeth, which is also one of my favorite bands currently.

Opeth is cool at times, I love Orchid, Morningrise, and My Arms, your hearse and can mildly tolerate Still Life.

But i despise all their recent efforts from Blackwater park and on.

basically, i love all opeth that was released on Candlelight and the rest of it i couldn't give a fuck about.

I love Agalloch. I haven't heard the other bands. I need to get Agalloch's newest album and their previous ones. I only have the Mantle downloaded, which I would like to buy when I have money.

Agalloch are the best band ever.

This is objective fact.

Listen to Ashes Against The Grain. Shit yourself out of euphoria. Repeat.

Just realized that Mors Principium Est and Omnium Gatherum is awesome.. yes, I know I'm late. Stop patronizing me.

Agalloch is boring shit.

Drone doom is a legitimate genre. Can't stand it, though. But Wikipedia does have a lot of idiotic shit in their metal-related articles. I long ago gave up trying to do anything about it, as it will be forever defined by populist out-of-touch idiots - and we ALL know the mainstream is the best source of information for metal, right? Right...? *crickets*

Harsh words. :( Their new CD is pretty damn different from their first two albums, though - It's faaaar more rockable and a lot less folky.