What Are You Listening To?

[Halloween_22]

I know what you mean .
I'm really into sludge at the moment, Annotations of an Autopsy and Suicide Silence are incredible bands. They're new but they're really flying the flag for old school death, grind, sludge metal.
I'm quite into hardcore, metalcore but not so much now as I was say a year ago. The whole thing got very old very quickly with hundreds of bands just knocking out the same formula - emo singing, breakdown, 'cookie monster' vocals etc. A couple of years back when the british metalcore scene first exploded it was quite exciting what with bands like Centurion, Architects, Clone the Fragile, Shaped by Fate etc. coming out all with their own unique styles and takes on the genre but as is always the case the whole thing got saturated with hundreds of copycat bands springing up and killing it off.

[cloud]

To be honest, Hal. The two bands mentioned there are too noisy for me. I just can't do brutality anymore without melody of some kind. I really have to feel something and be immersed in the song. I think I'm getting old before my time, lol.

Are you into Melodic Death Metal? Bands like In Flames, Arch Enemy, Soilwork, Amon Amarth, Extol, Gardenian, Dark Tranquillity, Insomnium, Carcass etc etc? That's the kind of really heavy music I like. With lots of brutality broken up by angsty melody.
Other than that it's stuff like the New Orleans Sludge/Stoner scene (Down, EYEHATEGOD, Crowbar, Corrosion Of Conformity, Acid Bath), Hardcore Punk, Thrash, Industrial, Industrial Metal, Nu-Metal, Progressive Metal, Trip-Hop, Grunge, some Black Metal, very very little "Indie" (Mansun are one of my all time favourite bands), Heavy Metal with a twist of Glam (i.e. Guns N' Roses, Skid Row, LA Guns). And more but that's off the top of my head.

Owt with a good mix of melody and brutality that doesn't feel too by numbers and that's on a conveyor belt.

[Halloween_22]

Originally Posted by cloud

To be honest, Hal. The two bands mentioned there are too noisy for me. I just can't do brutality anymore without melody of some kind. I really have to feel something and be immersed in the song. I think I'm getting old before my time, lol.

Lol. Yeah, I do like melodic death metal a lot. I love In Flames stuff, I've got most of their albums, same goes for Carcass, their an awesome band. Quite like Amon Amarth, Soilwork and Arch Enemy aswell. Saw Enemy at Download a couple of years ago and they put on a good show (although it was kind of stolen by a fan who jumped 40 ft from the scaffolding lol). At the same time though I really love seriously brutal relentless music like Suicide Silence, Agoraphobic Nosebleed, Misery Index, The Red Chord etc.

Saying that I do kind of feel i'm getting to the stage where I cant really listen to that stuff as much as I used to or as passionatley as I used to. I know what you mean about needing to feel immersed in a song to really enjoy it. Over the last few years I've increasingly branched out into different genre's to find new depths of stuff to listen to as the same old, same old brutal stuff does get a bit stale sometimes. When I was younger I could listen to Death metal for hours on end, guess i'm jut getting old LOL.

[Halloween_22]

I'd say my favourite genre of music is emotional hardcore, bands like Poison the Well, Shai Hulud, Norma Jean, Hopesfall, Armsbendback and the like. For me thats got the perfect balance of heaviness and emotion, melody etc. I find myself listening to these type of bands more so than any others usually. The lyrics that tend to accompany this type of music are always brilliant aswell, quite often really poetic and really carry a lot of emotional weight without being too sappy.

[vipco]

Forgive me for interrupting, ( I like to read the Music Thread to see if anyone joins has the same musical taste as me ) but what I wanna know is, what is sludge bands / music.?

[Halloween_22]

Originally Posted by vipco

Forgive me for interrupting, ( I like to read the Music Thread to see if anyone joins has the same musical taste as me ) but what I wanna know is, what is sludge bands / music.?

Sludge metal (or sludgecore) is like death metal but a lot slower and quite often features breakdowns (which death metal traditionally dosen't). The vocals usually alternate between 'Pig Squeals' and 'Cookie Monster' style. It's probably the heaviest type of metal there is. I'll let Cloud explain sludge/ stoner style music as apart from Down it's not something i'm too familiar with.

Hope that helps mate

[cloud]

Sludge is basically a twist on the old Black Sabbath sound done Lousiania-style. It deals mostly with depressing issues played in a way that evokes feel and atmosphere. The style of play is a slow reflective style, you won't get Dave Mustaine-type speed or solos but instead will be showered in a deep southern feel. To simplify it even further it's basically balls to the wall metal done by men with beards .

Here's a YouTube video for you to check out Vips... Down - Ghosts Along The Mississippi

Hal, two questions, 1) what's the SJR DVD you made reference to? I kept forgetting to ask. I wanna check it out now, and 2) have you had a listen to Southern Isolation yet?

[Halloween_22]

Yeah I listened to Southern Isolation cloud. Sorry, I forgot to mention it. Yeah, they're really good, I haven't checked out the stuff on youtube yet but I listened to 'Southern man' and 'Come back and let me in' on myspace. Really liked them, not the kind of stuff I listen to on a regular basis but if I'm in the mood I love stuff like that. Is the EP OOP now? Wouldn't mind picking it up.

The Superjoint DVD I've got is called 'Superjoint Ritual Live in Texas'. It was released after 'Use once and Destroy' (so unfortunatley dosen't feature any songs from 'Lethal Dose of American Hatred') It's a great DVD though. It's got a live set, which I think features all the songs from the album, and interviews with all the band members. My sister got me it for christmas or something a few years ago I think but you can get it on amazon for 6.99 if you wanna check it out mate.

[cloud]

Thanks, I'll be ordering one of those soon.

As for Southern Isolation, their EP is OOP but it can be bought on Amazon Marketplace for the bargain price of ?128.37... lol.

[trench]

Is sludge the Southern equivalent of what Lee Dorrian was / is doing with Cathedral? Cathedral are fantastic. Well, first album / demo's were amazing, second album was worth a shot but admittedly I haven't heard much since.

What about Doomriders? They do a fantastic cover version of Danzig's "Possession", probably better than the original.