What Are You Listening To?

[cloud]

I was underwhelmed by Disturbed's The Sickness album and so didn't go any further than that. Some good songs but some real crap as well. Some of their stuff since then has been good but I've not got round to checking out their later albums, perhaps I should?

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

I have? :S

[Halloween_22]

Originally Posted by cloud

I was underwhelmed by Disturbed's The Sickness album and so didn't go any further than that. Some good songs but some real crap as well. Some of their stuff since then has been good but I've not got round to checking out their later albums, perhaps I should?

Only other one of their albums I've heard is Ten Thousand Fists as my brother has it. It's not bad, theres some decent tracks on there. On a whole it's probably a better album than The Sickness, more of a straight rock/ metal album than TS, they seem to have done away with the rap aspects of that album. The songs I mentioned before are great songs though, 'Stupify' in particular is brilliant.

My interest in most of the bands from the nu-metal era became pretty much non existant shortly after it ended. I still revisit the odd album like Papa Roach's 'Infest', a couple of Korn's early releases and Hed PE's self titled album every now and again and still enjoy them. Most of the bands that carried on after that period seemed to really go downhill though, Papa Roach's post Infest output is abysmal IMO. That being one example. I'd already moved onto heavier stuff like death metal and grindcore by the time nu-metal fizzled out anyway.

[vipco]

What's the current 'hardest' metal around.?

Are the US bands harder than those from the UK.?

Just curious.

[Halloween_22]

Originally Posted by vipco

What's the current 'hardest' metal around.?

Are the US bands harder than those from the UK.?

Just curious.

It was once the case that US bands were heavier than UK bands, these days though it's the other way round IMO. When the UK metalcore/ deahcore scene exploded a couple of years ago some really heavy bands came out of that. Annotations of an Autopsy, (old school) Bring me the Horizon, Centurion and Clone the Fragile come to mind as a few of the heaviest. Plus, weve got bands like Napalm Death on our side aswell

The US does have it's share of seriously heavy bands like Suicide Silence, The Red Chord, August Burns Red etc. but I think were leading the way when it comes to extreme music these days.

As for the hardest metal going I'd say its a matter of opinion really. Theres death metal and sludgecore which is insanely heavy, but then you've got metalcore which is a bit of a mixed bag. Some bands like As I Lay Dying and Unearth are seriously heavy examples. One of the heaviest and hardest sounding bands around at the moment is First Blood, their beatdowns are some of the most punishing I've ever heard and their a hardcore band (albeit an extremley heavy one) their definatley worth checking out if your interested in hearing some really hard hitting stuff

[cloud]

I've gotta disagree with you about Papa Roach because I absolutely hated Infest but was very pleasantly surprised with lovehatetragedy and Getting Away With Murder. I hated the rapping and was glad they scrapped it later on. What's good about PR is that every album sounds different so to keep changing their sound has been impressive. I've not got round to buying The Paramour Sessions yet though.

I like the Nu-Metal phase because it spawned so many good bands who didn't get a lot of mainstream exposure. Bands like Pulse Ultra, One Minute Silence, Pleymo, Miocene, Blindside and others were really good and well worth checking out if you haven't. I much preferred the Thrash and Grunge fads of the late '80s and early '90s though. Wow, they were the days! Well from what I can remember, I was very young.

[vipco]

Is there a big scene in the UK for this music or would the bands have more of a cult foiiowing.?

How does the UK Metal scene compare with Europe's .?

NBZ would sell out the 100 Club London weeks in advance, plus the Belfast gigs would be in the same place Naplam Death and bands like that have played , but in Europe crowds of 5000 plus are common.

Just wondered how your scene and mine compared fan size way's.

[Halloween_22]

It's definatley more underground. A lot of the gigs I go to it's normal for there to be no more than a 100 people there (and thats on a good day) I've seen UK metal bands play to crowds of 50 or so people in the back rooms of pubs and stuff.
In some parts of the country these bands do pull bigger crowds. In places like Brighton and (parts of) London in particular they tend to have bigger followings. We have Ghostfest here in Leeds every year which always features the cream of the UK metal crop, still, its held in a pretty small club and theres only ever a crowd of around 200 (at the most) in attendance.

We used to have a really solid, thriving metal scene in Leeds but it seems to have died out as of late, all our best bands have split now .

[vipco]

I prefer a more intemate gig to those big events.

Much more fun can be had in a rock bar than a large concert hall imho.
The group seems to put more effort into the smaller pub gigs as its usually their hardcore fans there.

[Halloween_22]

Yeah, I prefer more intimate gigs aswell, definatley. Going to things like Download festival is great fun for the experience but as far as actual performances go you can really appreciate a band more at a small venue. Like you said, they always seem to put more into their set aswell at smaller gigs as everyone there is just there to see them and it creates a lot more energy for the band to feed off. Plus, after the set you can have a beer and a chat to the guys in the band which is always cool.