Syb said:
Children of Bodom - Everytime I Die
(Pussy song name, I know)
This band confounds me. They're so fucking heavy, yet at the same time, you can't help but get a huge grin when you're listening to them. They just sound like they're having so much damned fun doing what they're doing that you seriously can't help but love it. Add to that the absolute stupidity of their lyrics, and you have a band you absolutely cannot help but love. The singer takes some getting used to, but once he "clicks" you realise his voice is perfect for the band.
Needled 24/7, Mask of Sanity....they have so many songs that are just so damned fun to listen to. I frickin love this band so much. They're technical, heavy, complex, and have a million things going on at once, but something about their music makes it immediately obvious that they're having a great time playing, and it just makes you love the music.
EDIT- Didn't finish my post before clicking submit :/
Ahhh...forgot I was supposed to be responding to the original poster =)
Opeth is a band you want to look into. They have death metal vocals, but IMO they're used very classy. It's almost like opera. The singer also uses clean vocals - as much as the death metal growl - which are very nice. A brilliant band that anyone interested in metal should check out.
Opeth is an absolutely timeless band. They're really one of the classic bands to hit the scene and should not be missed by anyone, ever, regardless of musical preference. I think "Still Life" is perhaps the greatest death metal(if you could call it that) metal album ever recorded.
{warning....long pain of salvation rambling coming up..if you already know how great this band is...skip ahead}
I really feel that you can't mention Opeth without mentioning Pain of Salvation though. Opeth is like an attempt to add a genuinely emotional aspect to metal. Pain of Salvation, is to me, and many others I know, the absolute epitomy of emotion in musical form. The two bands base their music off the idea that you really can't tell what's coming next, but I feel PoS does it to a much larger, and better executed level.
They're lead in nearly every way by their singer, Daniel Gildenlow. I'm convinced this man turns everything he touches to gold as even their poorest album (One Hour by the Concrete Lake, for me) is nothing short of a breathtaking masterpeice. Their music is emotionally engaging (listen to Remedy Lane...and realise that it is almost entirely autobiographical), intellectually engaging (listen to, and make a concerted effort to understand the concept behind BE, their latest cd. It's absolutely rediculously deep and complex...and raises many intersting ideas and concepts about religion), musically complex(Handfull of Nothing, off the previously mentioned OHBtCL, is a perfect example. Any guitarist who's tried will tell you, the chugging intro riff is about a billion times as hard to play as it sounds like it would be). Their lyrics are deep, poetic(but not overbearing), unsettling when appropriate, but never cheesy, and perfectly fit to the songs. Their music is tough to describe as it varies to a great degree from song to song. They're one of the few bands that I can genuinely say most of their songs really bare no resemblance to each other, while never sounding contrived or forced. Their albums are deep and challenging...every single one is a concept album, even their live album, which has songs from most of their other albums, is arranged in such a way that there is a faint concept running through. And I should mention that their singer has one of the versatile, powerful, dynamic, and all around incredible voices in music today. And he sounds perfect live. Get their live dvd of BE. Their singer is absolutely flawless live, unlike many other singers of the type.
One thing though, they can be, at first, a VERY tough pill to swallow. They are not a band that has a tendency to jump out and grab you at first. When I first discovered them about a year ago(they were actually reccomended to me....someone told me "They are to Prog-Metal what Opeth are to Death metal"....this is a description that after thinking about it, I would agree with whole heartedly)...when I first started listening to them, I recognized they were talented, and doing something different, but it didn't really grab me. Nevertheless, I like talent, so I kept it in my cd player. Somewhere around last august it hit me that I had a new favorite band. I immediately ordered most of their cd's (I still have 2 to get), and one of which, Remedy Lane, has since become, unquestionably, my favorite album in the history of music. It is a touching story that revolves primarily around the singer's childhood, and a short time he spent in Budapest(Hungary) a few years ago. It is very personaly, very honest, and absolutely gut-wrenchingly emotional at times. Songs like "Rope Ends" and the closing track "Beyond the Pale" are absolutely devastating.
I'm going to stop. I'd love to go on about how absolutely mind blowingly incredible this band is, but every time I do, it seems to fall on deaf ears. If you what I've said interests anyone at all though, I would reccomend starting out with "The Perfect Element pt.1" as the starting point for getting into the band. It's the "most accesible" cd they have(still quite tough to swallow at first...but the melodies are most obvious on this cd), and has the most typical story(although it's not really very typical). Give it a shot before taking on Remedy Lane, as Remedy Lane will undoubtedly take soem time to digest. This band will sink it's teeth into you if you let, and I wholly reccomend that you do.
{end of pain of salvation ramble}
As far as purely Power Metal though, I'd say Iced Earth, Kamelot, and Dragon Force are good places to start. Dragon Forces singer is incredibly annoying IMO, but their music is ace.
