Soilwork - Figure # 5

Band: Soilwork
Song: Figure # 5
Album: Figure Number Five
Genre: Melodic Death Metal
Language: Strong

So one of the reasons yesterday's post was so freaking late is because my band was actually invited to guest on a radio show!  Super good times, if I get a copy of the audio I'll be sure to post it for y'all.  But yeah, I didn't manage to get home till like, 11pm, so my attempts to catch up on missing a post didn't go well.  Went live before midnight though, and that's what counts.

Today's band is a really solid outfit from Sweden, Soilwork.  These are some guys that, while I don't listen to them as much as I used to, I still consider one of my more favorite bands.  This song especially has some really strong energy to it, kicking in super strong right off the bat.  I'm hoping to catch them live someday, I've heard really good things about their live shows.

You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, or even sponsor my podcast on Patreon. No big, do whatever. But yeah, Twitter and Facebook are where I’m most active.

Twitter  Facebook  Patreon

Amon Amarth - Guardians Of Asgaard

Band: Amon AMarth
Song: Guardians Of Asgaard
Album: Twilight Of The Thunder God (2008)
Genre: Melodic Death Metal

Well I'm on a bad trend here, but I'll get back with it soon.  Yesterday was a crazy day and I did 20 haircuts (about 8 more than an average day) cause of back to school stuff, so I basically fell asleep after I finished the last late post.

Y'all like steak?  I just made some with an amazing sauce I found from a dude on YouTube.  I might have mentioned him before, but I don't think I have in recent months so here, check out the video.  All his stuff is bomb, so I think you'll like it.

Music wise we're gonna go back to my Metal roots a little bit and share an Amon Amarth tune.  While I'm not familiar with a lot of their older (or newer) albums, I'm a big fan of this one cause it has some of the best songs they've put out (in my opinion) on it.

You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, or even sponsor my podcast on Patreon. No big, do whatever. But yeah, Twitter and Facebook are where I’m most active.

Twitter  Facebook  Patreon

Neocracy - Here's To The Reckoning

Band:  Neocracy
Song:  Here's To The Reckonging
Album:  The Instinct For Conflict (2008)
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

Let's rock out to some of the music I was having a terrible time finding.  Like, for real, it took me ages to actually remember who these guys were and what the songs were called.  See, an issue with a lot of the music I got from Matt is that most of it didn't come complete.  Mostly meaning I didn't have the album info for a lot of artists, but in some cases I also had no track names, just numbers.

In the case of Neocracy, I was honestly just missing the album art.  If I see a picture, I'm much more likely to remember an album than if, say, I just have the name.  I'm generally good about it, but there's times like this when I couldn't remember for the life of me anything about the band outside of the artist name.

Then, after rediscovering Staple, I decided to just search Neocracy and just listen to songs till I found one I remembered.

This song hit me right out the gate with that screaming scale sweep and all my fun memories of jamming out to these guys came back.  Back in the day I generally only listened to that part up till the screaming started, then skipped back to hear the guitar again.  Such a good time man, always worth checking out.


Unrelated, I graduate today.

You can follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, or even sponsor me on Patreon. No big, do whatever. But yeah, Twitter and Facebook are where I’m most active.

Twitter  Facebook  Reddit  Patreon

Amon Amarth - Valhall Awaits Me

Band:  Amon Amarth
Song:  Valhall Awaits Me
Album:  With Odin On Our Side (2006)
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

Since I just watched Thor, it kinda made me think of Viking Metal again.  Really though, for lyrical content it's hard to beat Amon Amarth for themes about the gods and stuff.

I feel like I'm straying heavily into my energy playlists for songs ideas recently, and I don't mean to do that to anybody who accidentally followed me for the regular songs I post from time to time.  With school and all I'm just not as together as I'd like to be with this.  That's ok though, cause we, the community of like 30 people that read these, are clearly here for my incoherent rambles attached to some dope music.  That's what I'm hoping at least, since this one lady in the A to Z a year or two ago blasted me for how conversational my blog is.

The way I see it, I do a daily blog, so some posts are gonna just suck from time to time.  If the quality of this has to go down a little so I can maintain my 98% in school, so freaking be it, haha

Follow me on Facebook        Support me on Patreon

Ensiferum - Axe Of Judgement

Band:  Ensiferum
Song:  Axe Of Judgement

Album:  One Man Army (2015)

Genre:  Folk Metal, Melodic Death Metal

Ensiferum describes themselves as a Melodic Folk Metal band.  That would mean that they're a combo of Melodic Death Metal and Folk Metal.  This song specifically is much heavier toward the Melo Death side of things, but don't let that scare you away.

I was really happy when I came across these guys.  Partially cause they're just good, but also because I really do love some good Melo Death.  I actually worked to narrow it down between three different songs cause while I was shuffling though I kept finding stuff that was just fantastic.  Like, this is a fantastic band that is rather underrated.  That's the issue with Folk Metal though, a lot of people write it off since they hate the idea of mixing Metal with anything.  Freaking elitists.

And if this song isn't your speed, check out some of their other songs.  They have a plethora of music that's a lot more laid back and folk-like than this.

Follow me on Facebook        Support me on Patreon

Soilwork - Follow The Hollow

Band:  Soilwork
Song:  Follow The Hollow
Album:  Natural Born Chaos
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal
Language:  Brief, Strong

This was my favorite song off of my first Soilwork album.  I remember somebody had told me that they were really good and as was my habit at the time, I just went out and bought one of their albums.  If you actually want to learn more about bands that's a really solid habit by the way.  It get's you way more experience with the band than just listening to singles will give ya and you might be able to get your hipster self on by finding one of those hidden gem tracks.

I really dig this song though.  It grooves really solid much in the way as a lot of Soilwork's music does, but also has a hard edge...  As Soilwork's music does, haha

Follow me on Facebook        Support me on Patreon

The Agonist - Thank You, Pain

Band:  The Agonist
Song:  Thank You, Pain
Album:  Lullabies Of The Dormant Mind
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

Alissa White-Gluz is probably my favorite female Metal vocalist.  She's able to scream with the best of them while also singing as well as anybody.  Seriously, it's highlighted heavily in the first 30 seconds of the song, it's freaking dope.

I blame growing up with around a lot of female vocalists as the reason that I don't generally care for them as a general rule.  There's a lot of good ones out there, but I'm always going to pick the dude over them because I'm just kinda tired of the sound as a general rule.

The Agonist manages to swing having pretty vocals in with the hard edge of their sound though, which I think benefits them greatly.  They have a new singer now as Alissa has moved to Arch Enemy, and while I'm not as big a fan of her I can't deny that she's at least doing well with the material.

Follow me on Facebook        Support me on Patreon

Children Of Bodom - Are You Dead Yet

Band:  Children Of Bodom (CoB)
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

I really love CoB.  The band is amazingly talented and while I don't think I'd like Alexi's voice in another group it just really fits here.  I'm rather excited because I think me and some guys from work are planning to cover this song.  It's gonna be freaking difficult because I've never really played a really complex song on bass before, but I'm willing to give it a go.  Worst case scenario if it falls through on their end I'll actually have learned a hard song to play, so that'd be cool.



<
Follow Me On Facebook

Amorphis - Death Of A King

Band:  Amorphis
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

So in my attempts to just enjoy as much music as I possibly can I found that Spotify will make me playlists that are similar to what I have with very little artist crossover.  This led me to finding a lot of enjoyable music such as these guys.

There's a really cool sound they have going on here that's a bit of a mix between Melo-Death and Folk Metal and it's more than a little enjoyable.

Don't assume you're going to hate this right away, it's pretty solid.

<
Follow Me On Facebook

Soilwork - Rejection Role

Band:  Soilwork
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

Melo-Death is a really interesting style.  It's got all the harshness of Death Metal with a lot of the smooth groove...  Groovy type stuff.  I swear, I was going somewhere with that, I just don't remember where it was I was taking it to.

Soilwork though.  Tell me another band that pulls off synths in Metal as well as these guys and CoB manage to.  The synth work manages to help fill out the sound in a way that you don't usually catch in music like this.  Don't get me wrong, you can fill out a full sound with just the guitars, drums, and bass but it's a different sound.  The great thing here is that the synths don't take away from the edge that the music has.  It's still hard music, it just has a different flavor.

A To Z Challenge: A is for Alexi Laiho

Artist:  Alexi Laiho of Children Of Bodom  AKA Wildchild
Genre:  Neo Classical Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Symphonic Black Metal
Language:  Generally Strong (this song is clean)

Welcome to the A to Z of 2016!  I'm freaking pumped.  Like, really pumped.

So the way we're gonna run this is if it's an artist we'll do a little bit of info about them in whatever act showcases their talent the most.  If it's a band then we talk about the band.  #EasyStreet

Alexi Laiho is one of the best Metal guitarists out there right now.  Dude can play really fast while singing lead, but that's not all he can do.
First:  He can do that live which is impressive in itself.
Second:  He is literally almost always drunk at shows and it doesn't impact his playing or singing in a major way.  It's actually really impressive to see as I think I posted in the past.

If you've never heard his band Children Of Bodom before then you should really make a point to check them out.  They combine Classical music styles with Death Metal.  Neo Classical is a very interesting type of music that, while not everybody's cup of tea, is impressive to see pulled off well.

Children Of Bodom pulls it off very well, and their newest album continues their trend of knocking it out.  With the exception of one album that fans agree really wasn't that great they have put out solid music since 1993.

Hypocrisy - Fearless

Band:  Hypocrisy
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

These guys got recommended to me because they sounded like another band that I like a lot.  I use this app called Last.FM to track my song plays, and in return it gives me lots of fun statistics and some band recommendations that are ok.

Hypocrisy is a MeloDeath band though, and is different from both Children Of Bodom and Soilwork.  That's something I like a lot about the genre, there's a lot of different things going down.

I'm not sure what about them I like so much, they're just really good.  They've got a really nice flow going on.

Soilwork - Stabbing The Drama

Band:  Soilwork
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal

Yeah yeah, I'm drifting into my old trends.  Listen, I'm stuck on MeloDeath right now so you can momentarily put up with it.  It's just today and it's all because I picked up the new Bodom album.

I'm not too familiar with Soilwork's material to be honest, they're kinda more my brother's style of music as a rule.  I do really like them when I listen to them though, and this would be one of my favorite songs of theirs.  I need to be careful about saying that though, since every time I do I listen to some more of their stuff and I get obsessed about a different song.  Ah well.

Children Of Bodom - Needled 24/7

Band:  Children of Bodom (CoB)
Genre:  Melodic Death Metal
Language:  Strong

This is one of my favorite songs.  Period.

I don't know what it is about this band, but any of their fast songs are way near the top of my favorite songs list.

If you happen to want to, make sure to check out the live version.  The front man Alexi manages to keep up with both the vocals and playing, even though he's a bit drunk.  Apparently all of their shows are like this.

Still though, good music right here.