heavy-metal-bands

"If it weren’t obvious enough from album titles and covers such as The Archaic Course, Winter Thrice and True North, Borknagar specialize in bringing frosty vibes and Nordic themes of tribalism, folklore and paganism to the stylistic landscape. Like Enslaved, they got going with Viking metal but soon transitioned into English-spoken progressive black metal with folk accentuations, and they’ve persevered through many lineup changes since 1995 to fine-tune their sound. Their winning aesthetic was present right out of the gate, with the sharp riffs, acoustic strums, clannish bellows and/or towering clean singing of “Nord naagauk” and “The Eye of Oden” establishing Borknagar’s gratifying brand. Admittedly, their music became lusher and better produced over time – which goes against black metal’s fundamental griminess – but they never abandoned what made them unique (“The Black Canvas,” “Fleshflower,” “Erodent,” “Unraveling”). 30 years on, Borknagar still reign supreme in terms of creating exhilarating rallying cries and heartfelt reflections built upon triumphant singing, devilish screams, wintry environments and richly intense music."

"These pot-smoking musical maniacs in the grindcore band Cephalic Carnage are responsible for some of the most complex, intricate devil music that combines death metal, prog, stoner jazz, and experimental noise into one autonomous grindcore sound. The band's tempos are beyond insane and the drumming and bass lines will send you on a constant freefall rollercoaster. The rabid vocals and frenzied guitar riffs peel away at your insides, but then everything drops into an ambient instrumental trance for a split few seconds. This is music that will make you head bang, or convulse, possibly both."

"Bands as one-dimensional as Crowbar usually don't deserve much recommendation, but when stylistic imperatives are mastered so thoroughly, even the most single-minded deserve credit and respect. Crowbar will never get any credit for subtlety or diversity, yet they are one of heavy music's most obscure and delightful gems. Purity has its value, and New Orleans' all-time sludgiest exports have plenty of it on display within each of their recordings. [...] [Their early songs are] completely uncompromising and catchy in a slowed-down Black Sabbath-meets-Melvins-meets-Pantera kind of way."

"You can be a jazz player and be respected by musicians, but the rest of the world doesn’t care. [...] We’re going to play a game: name a jazz player that means something."

"Hirax became a fixture in the Los Angeles metal community before they achieved broader recognition, beginning with 1985’s aptly named ‘Raging Violence,’ released by Metal Blade, of course. The band was led by vocalist Katon W. de Pena, whose idiosyncratic vocal style alternated between vicious snarling and semi-operatic screams, thus mirroring his bandmates’ bi-polar blend of blazing thrash and classic metal."

"Frustrated by the limitations of metal, and disillusioned by insular politics of the “alternative” scene, Broadrick set out to stake his own unique territory. Combining nasty guitar riffing and grotesquely strained vocals with the inhuman beat-box rhythms and sampling of the best Wax Trax acts, Godflesh possesses a sound that defies explanation, a sound truly exemplary of the grindcore aesthetic."

"Celtic Frost took the riffing ethos of Tony Iommi and applied it to their slightly thrashy nature and whole-hearted morbid attitude."

"Meshuggah is probably one of the heaviest and most brutal bands of all time. A lot of that is due to Mårten Hagström and his huge sound and riffs. It's really scary what comes out of his 8-string Ibanez."

"In a musical realm where scale of influence has little to do with commercial success, few originators of the extreme metal arts evoke as deep a sense of mystery, or incite such hushed, reverential tones of admiration, as Sweden's Bathory. Essentially a one-man operation helmed by the mysterious Quorthon, Bathory's development from the rawest form of embryonic black metal, to thrash, death, and back to its self-devised Viking-themed black metal, has mirrored and regularly defined the genre's very evolution. Indeed, along with Switzerland's Celtic Frost, Germany's Kreator, and Denmark's Mercyful Fate, they easily qualify as one the most important European extreme metal acts of the '80s and '90s."

"We are the gone Cast aside clothes like funeral roses, and dance straight through the psalm I’m dead in the water Don’t come here for me I was once alive in the deserts eyes on the day it wed the sea I drew a chalk outline around your city Hushed the sobs in your halls But we both know it’s a killer, baby he will outrun them all There is so much shame in how little we’ve gained for so long Now the sky is falling And you’re just repeating every word I say."

"If you got it all then you got it right I’m gonna do what you say and get way out of line Nobody’s gonna stop me now It’s not how it looks unless you say nothing We all agree this proposal’s been sentenced to death Are we baiting the right hook to get your attention The media needs another blackout We’ve been calling Flooding hotlines We’ve applied mascara to the radio but that’s just a quick fix and we need a little more Does it matter to you at all Are you listening? or have you tuned out?"

"We're not equipped to stay, unloved But its all we've got and we're not at all alright Theres no difference between being holy and alone."

"We underestimated Doctor Doctor! Give me the news."

"We all cater to the fire, once the walls come rushing down for shame I can say it better than you felt it And I can be it bigger than you needed it."

"Mercyful Fate won a large cult following thanks to their dramatic lyrics, showing a Gothic obsession with evil and the occult, and Diamond's amazing vocal range, which shifted from a low growl to a banshee scream, plus the interplay of Shermann and Denner."

"Van Halen didn’t have much in common with The Clash or the Sex Pistols, but the Californians’ brand of ‘Atomic Punk’ had the same urgency as the London punks."

"All rise. Hallow be my name. In this kingdom we came without calling. Hallelujah."

"Love is here I am the snarling and starry-eyed We both want the same thing Better aim at the stranger in our yard Just try to stop me I am the blinding light of your life Prepare the body I’ve been better but thanks for asking Wait with the scarecrow for the spotlight in the rye I’ll eat you alive The calm will come again."

"The date on the sleeve says 1978, but a cursory listen to Van Halen’s debut tells you that it is, by some distance, the greatest guitar album of the 1980s. [...] Listening to it is a joyful experience, and that love of music gave meaning to every note they played."

"Hey there girls, I'm a cunt There was venom in the heart of the dagger."

"Death by division don't call it jealousy it's an exercise in infection control insanity's masterpiece split at the seams shakespearean virgin your world is a stage but your charms in the basket they gave the ax to an amateur I haven't stopped laughing how am I supposed to line this up kneel down vanity everyone's waiting we all want."

"In the long dark night of eternal life You've always been a light I think you're done here They've been mistaken They pored over the papers Trying to solve your equation But the truth was not in math it was in faith The divine does not divide she permeates"

"Every Time I Die always had a sense of swagger that other bands in their scene didn’t really have. The band’s energy was intense, making them a live act who could, and often did, tour with just about anyone."

"If There Is Room To Move, Things Move"

"Do you hear me? Am I coming through at all? Is any of this making sense? You've got a ghost on your hands. A televisual image only partially clear. Scrambled phantom (I wish we'd all just stop talking at once)."

"Don't try to resist, you're coming with us Provisions are made, accommodations are met Your words are recoded in the bleak genetics of the mob Praise apocrypha-omitted offense to relieve us of guilt but not of our sin We've sacrificed discourse at the feet of your clever turn-of-phrase Now you owe it to us, we demand to be taken aback To be showed the revival of hope, for which your words are responsible"

"There’s a shark in the stream where the newborns are baptized."

"Your distress is confounding the tightrope walker Just so we’re clear, you’re saying we’re all lost? Maybe I’m wrong but weren’t we just dancing? Oh, the way that we moved had every marauder curious Sniffing at the trash in our shoes Sharpening knives on the grindstone watch gears I don’t miss that much about anything you said After all we’ve never met I’ll get it right and stick my tongue down the throat of the moon."

"When faith abandons me I hope it does it honestly I still howl like an animal in the darkness And I'm reminded by the blood on my clothes I can't stand what I've become; I'm shivering to spite the sun We come together and we're overwhelmed by the loneliness I want oblivion all the time I want oblivion all the time I want oblivion all the time I want oblivion Burn slow There's no rush You're right Always right"

"The faulty mechanism of hope has disintegrated."

"We’re playing the 80s. Other bands are still playing the 70s."

"Everything I do is wrong But by God I do it right."

"There's nothing to see here. And nothing gazes back at me. There's nothing to see here. And that nothing looks back at us."

"Thanks lord, but I don't need anymore poor advice, poor advice I caught in the cannon with a one way ticket Four riders in a town with one horse."

"In high school, if you were playing any kind of music that wasn't dance, or just something that was really different—you know, rock, metal or hard rock, anything like that—then you needed to look like it. You needed to look like a bad dude, and we just looked like normal dudes....It wasn't about trying to impress everybody, because we looked at those types of people as weenies trying to do that stuff ... We just wore our normal stuff and we didn't really think about it. It just kind of happened that way and I think because we were searching for an extreme style, coupled with this no image, who-cares-what-we-look-like thing, then I think we fit in to that new movement that we discovered a little ways later, the whole Bay Area thrash scene."

"Sign my farewell with the chimes of clock radios 7a.m."

"Trouble are much more than representatives of [doom metal] and might be one of the best, unsung metal bands in the United States."

"Sweden's Candlemass helped reintroduce the lumbering power chords of Black Sabbath to an entire generation of post-New Wave of British Heavy Metal and post-thrash metalheads, almost single-handedly writing the handbook for the modern doom metal movement in the process. Emerging in 1986 with the landmark Epicus Doomicus Metallicus -- the LP helped coin the genre -- the band issued four more influential albums before ceasing operations in 1994."

"The legend goes that during a show with Chicago’s Trouble waaaaay back in the day, Metallica were so envious of guitarists Bruce Franklin and Rick Wartell’s guitar tones that they snuck onstage and wrote down their amp settings for themselves."

"In the history of doom, despite being incredibly hard to get hold of at times, their music is essential (KISS once came to them looking to buy two songs in the ’70s). The fact is, guitarist Victor Griffin simply doesn’t do bad riffs, and this rolling bit of heaviness is a humdinger, filling with Sabbathian dread and take-no-shit muscle."

"Washington D.C.’s answer to Black Sabbath, Pentagram are one of the most influential bands of the doom metal genre. [...] The epic guitar work of Victor Griffin helped set the standard for what American doom metal became, especially since the band had been active since the 1970s. The most polarizing member of the band, vocalist Bobby Liebling is very much the U.S. version of Ozzy Osbourne, but without the money or sustained success. the potential for doom metal dominance was never more than a few riffs away from this band’s grasp. Liebling is a soulful singer who complements the vile evil of the guitar tones present. Pentagram is a doom metal staple."

"Pentagram are one of the most enduring and influential underground bands in metal history with a trademark doom-laden style that's often compared to Black Sabbath. Laudatory reviews were abundant for 1987's Day of Reckoning, 1993's Relentless, and 1994's Be Forewarned, and they were bolstered by Pentagram's relentless touring and intense performances. Despite near constant lineup changes, singer Bobby Liebling kept the band alive."

"Turn to drugs to free my mind Just to see what I would find Tabs are great, now ask the drummer Smack my friend is just a bummer"

"Slowly slicing your body Wondering what's inside A psychopath addicted to flesh Now I'm taking your life Hacking through your organs Constantly watching your eyes I gotta see in your mind What happens when you die Bleed for me, Let me see you suffer Die for me, I love to hear you scream Dreaming of a death so violent Sanity is draining from me I'm forced to murder and slaughter By the visions in my head Laughiung as you die Please make me stop If blood is what it takes Then I'll just let it flow"

"Doom is not often a genre associated with youthful exuberance but when a band like Witchfinder General are playing it, it sure seems like a blast."

"Candlemass are synonymous with the doom metal genre and, in particular, for coining the phrase "epic doom metal”."

"Bay Area thrashers Death Angel only missed out being counted among the Big Four by a matter of months. [...] Death Angel still shred like it's 1982 and they're playing in a Daly City garage."

"As bands like Motörhead, Judas Priest and Iron Maiden sharpened metal’s edge, ramped up the speed or took it to epic new places, Witchfinder General maintained a Sabbathy groove in the new age, thanks to guitarist Phil Cope."

"As I become one with the earth My soul has passed the rebirth In this world I leave my flesh to rot No regrets, this is my lot Ashes to ashes Dust to dust Dark recollections of my past life Memories haunt me in black 'n' white Divine death now descends Burning as my existence ends In death I will fall asleep Floating deep From dying heaven To living hell A travel through ancient times Witness only what the dead shall see Walk among the dead As my body's still on my death bed In death I will fall asleep Floating deep From dying heaven To living hell"

"Though few would accuse Deicide of having pop sensibilities, there was something fun and catchy about them. This is in part thanks to Glen Benton's vocals; individual words are barked out, retaining the evil vibe, and the staccato delivery builds tension before breaking it back down with chaotic guitar solos."